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Move over, Hubble: Discovery of expanding cosmos assigned to little-known Belgian astronomer-priest
Hubble's Law, a cornerstone of cosmology that describes the expanding universe, should now be called the Hubble-Lemaître Law, following a vote by the members of the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the same organization that revoked Pluto's status as a planet. The change is designed to redress the historical neglect of Georges Lemaître, a Belgian astronomer and priest who in 1927 discovered the expanding universe—which also suggests a big bang. Lemaître published his ideas 2 years before U.S. astronomer Edwin Hubble described his observations that galaxies farther from the Milky Way recede faster.
The final tally of the 4060 cast votes, announced today by IAU, was 78% in favor of the name change, 20% against, and 2% abstaining. But the vote was not without controversy, both in its execution and the historical facts it was based on. Helge Kragh, a historian of science at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, calls the background notes presented to IAU members "bad history." Others argue it is not IAU's job to rename physical laws. "It's bad practice to retroactively change history," says Matthias Steinmetz of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics in Potsdam, Germany. "It never works."
[...] In 1927 Lemaître calculated a solution to Albert Einstein's general relativity equations that indicated the universe could not be static but was instead expanding. He backed up that claim with a limited set of previously published measurements of the distances of galaxies and their velocities, calculated from their Doppler shifts. However, he published his results in French, in an obscure Belgian journal, and so they went largely unnoticed.
In 1929, Hubble published his own observations showing a linear relationship between velocity and distance for receding galaxies. It became known as Hubble's Law. "Hubble was clearly involved, but was not the first," says astronomer Michael Merrifield of the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom. "He was good at selling his story."
[...] A final concern is whether IAU is within its rights to weigh in on historical affairs. "There is no mandate to name physical laws," Steinmetz says. IAU has acknowledged this and is only recommending the use of the term Hubble-Lemaître Law. Will it catch on? "No, I don't think so," Kragh says. "Hubble Law is ingrained in the literature for most of a century."
In any event, says Merrifield, "It doesn't matter all that much, really."
Related: UCF Researcher Argues That Pluto is a Planet, 2006 IAU Definition is Invalid
(Score: 2) by jelizondo on Thursday November 01 2018, @04:49AM (4 children)
Except that back then the lingua franca was German
Read some history boy/girl, learn that English became the lingua franca of science after WWII and not before.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 01 2018, @05:56AM
Das ist only becaust you could maken zee uberlongenizedconjugatensciencyesoundedwordens. Ja.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday November 01 2018, @02:49PM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by jelizondo on Thursday November 01 2018, @03:50PM
Certainly, there was science published in French and English, and no, German was not as popular (dominant?) as English is today. However, as you point out, Germany was a powerhouse and if you wanted to be in the cutting edge of Physics or Mathematics, German was the language.
After WWII with a lot of scientists moving [i.e Einstein] (or being taken [i.e. Von Braun]) to the US, English became dominant to the point that publishing in a language other than English is futile.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 01 2018, @07:26PM
Maybe you should learn how to read boy/girl.