View Single Post
  #2  
Old October 5th 18, 04:12 AM posted to sci.astro.research
Phillip Helbig (undress to reply)[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 273
Default IAU: Hubble-Lemaitre Law?

In article , Steve Willner
writes:

The IAU is considering recommending that the expansion of the
universe be referred to as the "Hubble-Lemaitre Law" instead of the
"Hubble Law." More details, including the resolution text and
background material, are at
https://www.iau.org/news/announcements/detail/ann18048/

My French isn't as good as I'd like it to be, but in Lemaitre's paper
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1927ASSB...47...49L
I don't see any data, though the paper summarizes some data from
Hubble and Stromberg at the top of p 56 (or just above Eq 24 if I'm
not reading the page number correctly). Am I missing something?


Lemaitre didn't have any data of his own, but he was the first to
actually calculate a numerical value for the "Hubble" constant. This
crucial bit was left out of the English translation for MNRAS, which is
one reason (Hubble's ego being another) why he wasn't given much credit.
Also, Hubble---otherwise not one to shy away from glory---remained
sceptical about the INTERPRETATION of the magnitude-redshift relation he
(and others) found.

Why it was left out of the English translation was something of a
mystery for a while, but has now been solved. Basically, he published a
paper in French, and it was later translated for MNRAS, but with (from
today's perspective) the most interesting bit left out. To make a long
story short, it turned out that he suggested leaving it out, because it
was of no current interest (he said "actual interest", but since
"actuel" means "current" in French, that is not what he meant). This is
an interesting story in itself. Check out Nussbaumer & Bieri's book
Discovering the Expanding Universe. I don't have the reference at hand,
but I believe that it was Mario Livio who solved the mystery.

See also a post from today on Peter Coles's blog "In the Dark".

Any comments on the resolution? If interested, please examine the
background material linked from the IAU announcement rather than rely
on my summary.


I think that one could make a case for calling it just Lemaitre's Law.
On the other hand, I'm not sure how effective such top-down resolutions
are nor whether, in general, they are a good idea. In this particular
case, I think that it is justified.