PHYS 1040 Signature Assignment | Taylor Silveira

I want you to imagine being in a spacecraft, up in the universe, and looking down

at the Earth. What do you see? How do you feel? I’ve always found the universe to be

quite intriguing and especially mysterious. And to think that the universe is much bigger

than we could ever imagine. Edwin Hubble is an astronomer who made discoveries that

suggest that it is.

Edwin Powell Hubble (1889 – 1953) was an American astronomer born in

Marshfield, Missouri, and moved to Wheaton, Illinois in 1900. His childhood was based

on more athletic skills than his intellectual abilities. He was very talented and played

football, baseball, and ran track. He won multiple awards in track and led the University

of Chicago’s basketball team to their first conference title in 1907. Hubble’s studies at

the University of Chicago concentrated on mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy,

which resulted in a Bachelor of Science degree by 1910.

After his journey at the University of Chicago, he spent three years at The Queen’s

College, Oxford studying law instead of science as a promise to his father who passed in

1913. Hubble returned to the Midwest from Oxford and acquired no motivation to

practice law and instead taught physics and mathematics at New Albany High School. A

year of teaching and he decided to enter graduate school with the help of a former

professor to study astronomy at the university’s Yerkes Observatory.

Hubble played an important role in extragalactic astronomy and observational

cosmology. His name is most known for the Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to

as HST or Hubble) which is one of the largest and most versatile tools for astronomers.

Not only does he have a telescope named in his honor, but he also provided evidence
 PHYS 1040 Signature Assignment | Taylor Silveira

that the recessional velocity of a galaxy increases with its distance from the Earth. He

implies that the universe is expanding.