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Old October 6th 18, 10:21 PM posted to sci.astro.research
Steve Willner
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Default IAU: Hubble-Lemaitre Law?

In article ,
"Phillip Helbig (undress to reply)" writes:
Lemaitre didn't have any data of his own, but he was the first to
actually calculate a numerical value for the "Hubble" constant.


Thanks. On that basis, it seems to me the response should be to
change "Hubble constant" to "Lemaitre constant." As an observer, I
favor those papers that actually present data, so my initial thought
is that "Hubble Law" should remain.

Basically, [Lemaitre] published a paper in French, and it was
later translated for MNRAS, but with (from today's perspective) the
most interesting bit left out. ... I don't have the reference at
hand, but I believe that it was Mario Livio who solved the mystery.


Yes, that's one of the references in the IAU link. Livio's paper is
behind the _Nature_ paywall, though. I haven't looked for an open
version.

On the other hand, I'm not sure how effective such top-down resolutions
are nor whether, in general, they are a good idea.


Both valid concerns, to be sure. Probably changing "Hubble constant"
is more of a stretch than "Hubble law," and that may have influenced
the IAU body proposing the change.

Hubble also has a "variable nebula" (NGC 2261 associated with R Mon).
You missed that one. :-)

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