Georges Lemaitre and Stiglers Law of Eponymy
GGeorges Lemaıˆtre and Stigler’s Law of Eponymy
David L. BlockAbstract
One of the greatest discoveries of modern times is that of the expandingUniverse, almost invariably attributed to Hubble (Proceedings of the National Acad-emy of Sciences of the United States of America 15:168, 1929). What is not widelyknown is that the original treatise by Lemaıˆtre (Annales de la Socie´te´ Scientifique deBruxelles, Se`rie A 47:49, 1927) contained a rich fusion of both theory and ofobservation. The French paper was meticulously censored when published inEnglish: all discussions of radial velocities and distances, and the very first empiricaldetermination of H , were suppressed. Stigler’s law of eponymy is yet again affirmed:no scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer (Merton, AmericanSociological Review 22(6):635, 1957). An appeal is made for a Lemaıˆtre Telescopenaming opportunity, to honour the discoverer of the expanding universe. Lemaıˆtre (1927): A Theoretical Paper?
The title of the original 1927 paper indicates to the reader that the content will be afusion of both theory and of observation : “Un univers homoge`ne de masseconstante et de rayon croissant, rendant compte de la vitesse radiale des ne´buleusesextra-galactiques.” Which translates into English thus: “A homogeneous universeof constant mass and increasing radius accounting for the radial velocity of extra-galactic nebulae”.Lemaıˆtre spent the years 1924–1925 at the Harvard College Observatory. He hadan excellent foundation in observational astronomy, writing about terms such as theeffective temperatures of stars, trigonometric parallaxes, moving-cluster parallaxes,absolute bolometric magnitudes, dwarf branch stars, giant branch stars, and the like.
D.L. Block ( * )School of Computational and Applied Mathematics, University of the Witwatersrand,Johannesburg, South Africae-mail: [email protected]. Holder and S. Mitton (eds.), Georges Lemaıˆtre: Life, Science and Legacy ,Astrophysics and Space Science Library 395,DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-32254-9_8,
Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013 o speak of Lemaıˆtre (1927) as a most remarkable and absolutely brillianttheoretical paper only, is a grave injustice to the very title. Not only does Lemaıˆtrederive a linear relationship between the radial velocities of galaxies and theirdistances in the above paper, but he is eager to determine the rate at which theuniverse expands. Lemaıˆtre (1927) carefully uses the radial velocities of 42 extra-galactic nebulae tabulated by Stro¨mberg (1925), and he converts apparentmagnitudes m into distance [log r ¼ m + 4.04] following Hubble (1926). Theactual value which Lemaıˆtre obtains in 1927 for the rate of expansion of theUniverse is 625 km s (cid:2) Mpc (cid:2) ; 575 km s (cid:2) Mpc (cid:2) with different weighting factors(Fig. 1).Jaki (1974) elaborates: “Lemaıˆtre’s treatment of the problem could hardly bemore impressive with respect to specific results . . . a formula and a table of valuesfor the redshift of receding galaxies in fine agreement with the actually observeddata . . . ”When the Royal Astronomical Society decided to publish an English translationin 1931 from the journal Annales de la Socie´te´ Scientifique de Bruxelles, a mostdramatic censorship of the first empirical determination of H occurred (Fig. 2). Ameticulously researched book (with a foreword by the late Allan Sandage) has beenpublished on this precise theme. It is entitled Discovering the Expanding Universe (Nussbaumer and Bieri 2009). Professor Nussbaumer graciously sent me a copy ofthe original French paper in 2009, and the sectors censored out in the Englishtranslation appear in Fig. 2. Equation (24) holds the key. In an independent study,Sidney van den Bergh (2011) affirms that the suppressions in Eq. (24) wereintentional.It would be historically accurate to say that the testing of a linear velocity-distance relation is due to the meticulous observations by Hubble and Humason insubsequent years, but not the formulation of this relation, as seen in the completeoriginal equation (24).
Priorities in Scientific Discovery
And now, I give some insight into the mindset of Edwin Hubble. He was fiercelyterritorial, as we see in a letter from Hubble to de Sitter, dated 21 August 1930,wherein Hubble writes: “I consider the velocity-distance relation, its formulation ,testing and confirmation, as a Mount Wilson contribution and I am deeplyconcerned in its recognition as such” (emphasis added).Nussbaumer and Bieri (2009) respond as follows: . . . the formulation and its central place in cosmology was first given by Lemaıˆtre . . . thereis no justification to glorify Hubble’s publication of 1929 [as the] original discovery of thelinear velocity- distance relationship . . . (emphasis, mine).
Lemaıˆtre was eclipsed. Multitudes of textbooks proclaim Hubble as the discov-erer of the expanding universe. But herein lies a repeated pattern. In 1927,
D.L. Block ig. 1
Upper panel : The data used by Lemaıˆtre (1927) to yield the first empirical value of the rateof expansion of the Universe in which v / r is predicted to be constant (see Eq. 24 in Fig. 2).Lemaıˆtre derived values of 625 km s (cid:2) Mpc (cid:2) and 575 km s (cid:2) Mpc (cid:2) . The solid line in the toppanel has a slope of 575 km s (cid:2) Mpc (cid:2) and is reconstructed by H. Duerbeck. Lower panel : theradial velocity–distance diagram published by Hubble, 2 years later, in 1929, with best slope of530 km s (cid:2) Mpc (cid:2) ( Top panel : Courtesy H. Duerbeck)Georges Lemaıˆtre and Stigler’s Law of Eponymy nut Lundmark penned these words, cited by Sandage (2004): “As to Hubble’s wayof acknowledging his predecessors I have no reason to enter upon this questionhere.”Is it not strange that Vesto Slipher is not referenced at all in Hubble’s landmarkpaper of 1929? The vast majority of radial velocities in that paper are from Slipher.Perhaps an even more glaring example is Fig. 3, written to J. H. Reynolds on a visitto England.As elucidated by Block and Freeman (2008), Reynolds rises to the Hubblerequest. He publishes his results in Reynolds (1920). Hubble very carefully studiedthis paper and actually pencilled in some handwritten comments, shown to me bythe late Allan Sandage. (For example, next to each of the Reynolds class II, III andIV are the Sa, Sb and Sc notations penciled in by Hubble. Dr. Sandage furthermoreaffirmed to me that the correspondence between Reynolds types and Hubble typesis “one-to-one”). Hubble (1926) appeared in print 6 years after Reynolds – with noreference to Reynolds (1920). Was Lundmark correct?In the English speaking world, a total eclipse fell on the remarkable astronomicalinsight of Lemaıˆtre (Kragh and Smith 2003). The translator has been demonstratedto be Lemaıˆtre himself (see below my Note Added in Proof). What an intriguing
Fig. 2
Sections in black boxes , pertaining to the discussion and use of radial velocities of galaxiesand their distances by Lemaıˆtre (1927) to provide the first empirical determination of H weremeticulously and ingeniously suppressed or censored in the English translation. Equation (24) isabsolutely crucial D.L. Block roof of Stigler’s Law of Eponymy; Lemaıˆtre was, through his own actions,robbed of being attributed with one of the greatest discoveries in astronomy of alltime. There are myriads of speculations as to why Lemaıˆtre decided to omit hisempirical computation of the rate of expansion of the universe from the English Fig. 3
Hubble requests the following from J. H. Reynolds: “Could you not throw your ideas intothe form of a precise classification so we could actually apply it to a large number of nebulaerepresenting the various sizes and degrees of brightness with which we will be dealing?” The letteris believed to have been written in 1919, a year in which Hubble is recorded to have dined inEngland. This letter was first reproduced in Block and Freeman (2008). The original is in thearchives of the Royal Astronomical Society of LondonGeorges Lemaıˆtre and Stigler’s Law of Eponymy ranslation of his monumental 1927 paper (Fig. 4), although historians of astronomymust never forget his original intentions, as recalled by Lemaıˆtre himself severalyears later (in 1950, see below). The history is not irrelevant.
CODA: A Lemaıˆtre ELT?
One of Galileo’s masterful works was entitled
Sidereus Nuncius – the starrymessenger. The moral of the censorship (Fig. 2) is – as Martin Gaskell (privatecommunication) poignantly reminded me – Mark chapter 4, verse 22. I allowNussbaumer and Bieri (2009) to have the final word here regarding the legendaryGeorges Lemaıˆtre: “Even in his influential
The Realm of the Nebulae published in1936, he [Hubble] avoided any reference to Lemaıˆtre. Was he afraid that a gemmight fall from his crown if people became aware of Lemaıˆtre’s pioneering fusionof observation and theory confirmation ?”(italics, mine).
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I thank my co-author of
Shrouds of the Night , K. C.Freeman, for his invaluable insight, encouragement and support. I am indebted to Harry Nussbaumer,Robert Smith and Sidney van den Bergh for their detailed comments on the manuscript. I warmlythank Dominique Lambert, Piet vd Kruit, Maarten Schmidt and the Director General of ESO,Tim de Zeeuw for their insight and interest. Profound appreciation goes to my sponsors AVENGand AECI for financial support and to archivist Mrs. Liliane Moens at the Lemaıˆtre Archives.
Fig. 4
The alarming “presence of a censor” is seen in this February 1931 letter from WM Smart toG. Lemaıˆtre. In extremely polite terms, Lemaıˆtre is told by Smart that Hubble’s observationalresult of 1929 is “something more elegant”. The reason we know that Smart is specifically alludingto Hubble (1929) is as follows: Lemaıˆtre is given full freedom to translate his 1927 French paper,from paragraph 1 to paragraph 72 (which at first glance, appears as a symbol “n”, but which isactually the number “72” as affirmed by D. Lambert – private communication). Here follows thepunch-line: paragraph 73 is Lemaıˆtre’s equation 24. Paragraph 73 would have been the empiricaldetermination by Lemaıˆtre of his expansion coefficient, published in 1927 (Courtesy: LemaıˆtreArchives, Louvain-la-Neuve) D.L. Block ote Added in Proof – “The History of This Science CompetitionIs Not Irrelevant” – Reflections by Lemaıˆtre Himself, in 1950
The world has before its eyes one of the most brilliant examples of
Stigler’s law ofeponymy –which in its simplest form, asserts that: no scientific discovery is namedafter its original discoverer. “Priorities in Scientific Discovery: A Chapter in theSociology of Science” (Merton 1957) is of crucial importance in this context.In a Comment published in
Nature
Mario Livio (
Nature , 479, 171, 2011) hasunearthed a letter from Lemaıˆtre to W. M. Smart (dated 9 March 1931). From thatdocument, it is clear that Lemaıˆtre himself translated his 1927 paper into English andwho also omitted his determination of the coefficient of expansion of the Universe( H ) from values of radial velocities available as of 1927. However, in his CommentLivio omits a vital reference, namely thoughts penned by Lemaıˆtre himself in 1950( L’expansion de l’Univers, Bibliographie: Annales d’Astrophysique , 13, 344):
About my contribution of 1927, I do not want to discuss if I was a professional astronomer.I was, in any event, an IAU member (Cambridge, 1925), and I had studied astronomy for twoyears, a year with Eddington and another year in the U.S. observatories. I visited Slipher andHubble and heard him in Washington, in 1925, making his memorable communication aboutthe distance [to] the Andromeda nebula. While my Mathematics bibliography was seriouslyin default since I did not know the work of Friedmann, it is perfectly up to date from theastronomical point of view; I calculate [in my contribution] the coefficient of expansion(575 km per sec per megaparsecs, 625 with a questionable statistical correction). Of course,before the discovery and study of clusters of nebulae, there was no point to establish theHubble law, but only to calculate its coefficient . The title of my note leaves no doubt on myintentions:
A Universe with a constant mass and increasing radius as an explanation of theradial velocity of extra-galactic nebulae.
I apologize that all of this is too personal . But, asnoted by the author (p. 161) “the history of this science competition is not irrevelant” and it isuseful to highlight the details to enable an exact understanding of the scope of the argumentthat can be drawn from this. (Emphasis added)In 1950, Lemaıˆtre clearly did not want the rich fusion of theory and observationscontained in his 1927 paper to be buried in the sands of time.
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