Since I’m here at a conference celebrating the scientific achievements of Vesto M. Slipher, I thought I’d take the opportunity to make a few remarks about Slipher’s work and legacy.
I often use this picture in popular talks to illustrate the correlation between distance (x-axis) and apparent recession velocity (y-axis) that has become universally known as Hubble’s Law. This is an early version of such a plot published by Edwin Hubble in 1929.
In public talks I rarely have time to go into the details of this, but it is worth saying that only the results on the x-axis were Hubble’s own measurements. Hubble only contributed half of the above plot, i.e. the distance measurements, and these turned out to be wrong by a factor of about 10 owing to an incorrect identification of the stars used as standard candles. All the recession velocities on the y-axis – obtained by looking at the displacement of lines in the target galaxy’s spectrum – were in fact obtained by Vesto Slipher at the Lowell Observatory here in Flagstaff, Arizona. Hubble used these data from Slipher with permission, but gave no credit to Slipher in the references to his 1929 work. A later, and more convincing, version of this plot published in 1931 by Hubble and Humason, was accompanied by a generous acknowledgement to Slipher’s contribution. However, by then, Hubble’s name was firmly associated with the plot and Slipher’s contribution was largely forgotten for many years subsequently.
This episode isn’t at all atypical of Hubble’s behaviour. He was an extremely ambitious man who was an expert in the art of promoting himself and the Mount Wilson Observatory where he worked. Slipher was a very different type of man: quiet, self-effacing, and very much a team player, dedicated to scientific accuracy rather than his own reputation.
It’s worth saying further that the key observation that led to the understanding that the Universe is expanding is the fact that most of the spectra obtained by Slipher, over the years subsequent to his first measurement of the spectrum of the Andromeda Nebula (M31) celebrated by this conference, showed a redshift indicating velocity away from the observer. Even without distance measurements this leads directly an interpretation in terms of cosmic expansion. Ironically, the first spectrum he obtained, M31 shows a blue shift, as do a few others plotted with negative velocities in the above diagram, but the more distant sources exclusively show a redshift.
As a scientist should be, Slipher was very careful about the interpretation of this result. The more distant objects are fainter and thus more difficult to observe. Could it arise from some systematic artifact? Or could there be an unknown physical effect that produces a redshift dependent on the size of the source? These questions could only be answered when accurate distances to the nebulae were established, so Hubble’s contribution was by no means negligible. It’s completely untrue, however, to say that Hubble discovered the expansion of the Universe, so there’s yet another example of Stigler’s Law of Eponymy whenever anyone talks about the Hubble expansion.
One of the great things about coming to this meeting was the chance to meet Alan Slipher, grandson of Vesto Slipher. He and other members of his family refer to Vesto as “VM”, by the way, which I hadn’t realised before. VM lived a long life, dying in 1969 just short of his 94th birthday, so Alan knew him well until age 17 or so. He spoke most warmly and movingly after yesterday’s conference dinner about his memories of his grandfather, who he clearly looked up to. His words confirmed the impression I’d already formed, that Slipher was an extremely cautious and serious scientist as well as a kindly and humble man.
The contrasting personalities of Slipher and Hubble are further illustrated by correspondence between the two that is archived at the Lowell Observatory. Slipher comes across as kindly and cooperative, Hubble as pompous and self-regarding. I know which of the two I admire the best, both and scientist and human being.
In the Dark 