The Perfect Machine
Page 65
background of, 308
drive and control system designed by, 308-312, 319, 320-321, 328-329, 405, 411
illness and death of, 311, 312, 314
Smith, Walter, 221
solar eclipse of 1919, 4
Solar Union, 46
Southern Pacific railroad, 247, 376
Soviet Union, 131, 414-415
spectrograph, 17n
Sperry, Elmer, 120
Staples, David Jackson, 27
Stebbins, Joel, 63, 305, 328
Stellafane, 94, 213
stock markets, 112, 114, 130-131, 158-159, 161
Stokes, Anson Phelps, 165
Strong, John, 328, 382, 383-384
Sullivan, Eugene, 340
Sun Shipbuilding Company, 286
supernovas, 259-261, 281, 304, 353, 354
Swasey, Ambrose, 28
Swope, Gerard, 100, 132, 133, 142, 157, 163, 166, 167, 173
technology:
international competition in, 41-42
in 1920’s, 89-90
telescopes:
recent trends in, 414-417
refractor vs. reflector, 28-29, 33-34
Texas, University of, 139, 191, 223, 309, 41211
Thomas, Lowell, 197-198, 203, 217
Thomson, Elihu, 77, 98-100, 111, 115-116, 117, 119, 122, 126, 127, 132, 135, 136, 140-145, 154, 155, 156, 162, 163, 167, 171, 172, 173, 300
background of, 98
Thomson-Houston, 98
Thorkelson, H. J., 75-76, 80, 87, 106
3C 295, 405
Times, 202, 380
Times (London), 4
Timken, H. H., 120
Tolman, Richard, 148-150, 335, 362
Tombaugh, Clyde, 21
Tracey, Dan, 209, 210
Traxler, Ben, 229-230, 257, 260, 292, 318, 352, 363, 372, 385, 394, 398, 405, 409
Triangulum (M33), 20, 62, 63, 67, 302, 305
United States:
in 1920s, 6-7, 10-11, 89-90
in Great Depression, 130-131, 142, 158-160, 161, 179, 183, 197-198, 219, 245-246, 334, 343-344
in World War II, 356-357, 365-366
post-World War 11, 365, 376-377
U.S. Steel, 128, 344
van Maanen, Adrien, 21-22, 23n, 75, 150
variable stars, see Cepheid variable stars
Victoria telescope, 124
von Karmann, Theodor, 113, 178, 214, 267, 268, 293, 295
Ward, George, 139, 175-176
Warner, Worcester Reed, 28
Warner & Swasey, 28-29, 30, 31, 111, 120, 123, 124, 225, 226, 263
Washington, D.C., in 1920s, 10
Weaver, Warren, 225, 276, 298, 337, 338, 339, 341, 364, 366, 379, 387, 388
Weber, Gus, 372
Weinberg, Steven, 396-397
Westinghouse, 175, 263, 265, 281, 296
bills from, 286
description of, 284-285, 289
mounting manufactured by, 284-291, 297, 314-315, 346
publicity, media and, 284, 287-288, 290, 292, 314, 319
J. G. White Engineering Company, 77, 78, 111, 124
Wildroot Cream Oil, 384, 386, 413
Wiley, Glen M., 247
Williamson, F. E., 247-248
Wilson, Albert, 397
Wilson, Charles, 202, 203, 205, 224, 225
Wilson, Olin, 113, 372, 401
wireless, see radio
Wirtz, Carl, 67
Wood, Harry 0., 209
Woodbury, David, 244-245, 329-331, 406
Woods, Wallace, 169, 170, 171, 172, 177
Works Progress Administration (WPA), 230, 315
World War I, 8, 347
World War 11, 333, 343-361, 363-364, 365-366
science in, 347, 356-357, 358, 366
Wright, Fred, 217
Wright, Helen, 56n
Yerkes, Charles Tyson, 31-32, 77, 79
Yerkes Observatory, 31-36, 39-40, 41, 61, 90, 138, 253, 392
Zeeman, Pieter, 12
Zeiss, 120, 212
Zwicky, Fritz, 151-152, 259-261, 281, 304-305, 306, 308, 334, 349, 351, 380, 381, 397, 405-406
Zworykin, Vladimir, 313, 328-329
Acknowledgments
I am indebted to many men and women who mined their memories, libraries, file cabinets, scrapbooks, office shelves, and back closets for material on the building of the two-hundred-inch telescope. Often memories from half a century back seemed as clear as yesterday—testimony to the incredible impression the enterprise made on so many.
In California I drew on the memories of Ben Traxler; Mel Johnson; Sylvia, Bill, and Mary Marshall; and Byron Hill, who also provided audio and video tapes, documents, and photographs from their private collections. Jim McCauley, Anne Price, Walter Smith, and John Hoxie brought back a Corning that is no more. Rein Kroon not only recounted details of his work in Pasadena and at Westinghouse but prepared a collection of otherwise unavailable documents from his private papers. I am truly sorry that Ben Traxler and Rein Kroon did not live to see this book completed. I would have enjoyed their reactions to the story, and the book would undoubtedly have profited from their critical readings.
In Pasadena, Jesse Greenstein, Horace Babcock, Olin Wilson, and Allan Sandage evoked the excitement of the anticipation and early days of the telescope. Larry Blackee, Bill McLellan, and Earle Emery shared memories of their years of working on the telescope, and pointed out treasures hidden in the domes at Palomar. Fred Harris, Hal Petrie, and Robert Brucaton fielded questions and shared the contemporary excitement of the basement of Robinson Hall. Christine Shirley graciously allowed me to tour Hale’s solar lab, with Horace Babcock as a guide.
During my stays at Palomar, Bob Thicksten, Will McKinley, Jeff Phinney, Dana and Bruce Cuney, John Henning, Paul van Ligten, Jean Mueller, Merle Street, Luz Lara, and Gerry Neugebauer shared a sense of the continued excitement of the telescope and the mountain. Willem Baan and John Salzer graciously opened the observing room to a visitor during their run on the two-hundred. I would particularly like to thank Robert Brucato, Bob Thicksten, Hal Petrie, and the Palomar staff for putting up with my questions during the removal and washing of the mirror and the first-ever removal and replanting of the edge supports.
In Pasadena and Redwood City, Olga Rule, Carol Roth, and Naomi Serrurier shared memories of Bruce Rule and Mark Serrurier, along with private papers from their collections. Richard Preston, in Princeton, was generous with his notes and with tapes he made in his own interview of Byron Hill. Neal Matthews of the San Diego Reader shared the notes he made during a visit to Palomar. William Niering, of Connecticut College, helped with botanical fine points.
I would also like to acknowledge the many archivists and librarians who assisted my research. John Anderson and Ruth Shoemaker at the Hall of History at General Electric in Schenectady, Ron Brashear of the manuscript department of the Huntington Library, Michelle Cotton at the Corning Glass Works, Helen Knudsen at the Caltech Astrophysics Library, Melissa Smith and Emily Oakhill at the Rockefeller Archive Center, Virginia Wright at the library of the Corning Museum of Glass, Charles Ruch at Westinghouse, the staff at the Hagley Museum and Library, and Carol Buge and the current and past staffs of the Institute Archives at Caltech not only addressed dozens of requests for obscure documents and photographs but provided suggestions and surprises from their own expert knowledge.
I owe special debts to Paul Routley, now of the U.S. Naval Observatory, who introduced me to the wonders of astronomy and the Hale telescope; to Edward Burlingame for his faith and encouragement on this project; to Jesse Greenstein, Daniel Kevles, and Allan Sandage for their thoughtful reading of the manuscript of this book; and to my wife and son for putting up with many years of Palomar anecdotes.
For the errors that remain, I claim full credit.
About the Author
RONALD FLORENCE was educated at Berkeley and Harvard. The author of five previous books, he lives with his wife and son on the Connecticut shore, where they raise Cotswold sheep.
Praise
“Atmospheric, sound, and elegantly readable, The Perfect Machine provides a riveting account of how, out of a welter of human passions and imperfections, this noble thing got built right.”
—Timothy Ferris
“Magnificent … a superb history by a superb writer and historian…. Must reading for organizers and users of Big Science.”
—Allan Sandage
“Ronald Florence has done an amazing job in reconstructing one of the greatest technological achievements of this century…. Anyone who thinks that all astronomers are unemotional, absentminded academics is in for quite a few surprises.”
—Arthur C. Clarke
ALSO BY RONALD FLORENCE
Nonfiction
Fritz
Marx’s Daughters
The Optimum Sailboat
Fiction
Zeppelin
The Gypsy Man
Copyright
A hardcover edition of this book was published in 1994 by HarperCollins Publishers.
THE PERFECT MACHINE. Copyright © 1994 by Ronald Florence.
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Epub Edition © AUGUST 2011 ISBN: 978-0-062-10578-3
First HarperPerennial edition published 1995.
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The Library of Congress has catalogued the hardcover edition as follows:
Florence, Ronald.
The perfect machine / Ronald Florence.
p. cm.
Includes index. ISBN 0-06-018205-9
1. Reflecting telescopes—California—Palomar, Mount—History.
2. Mount Wilson and Palomar Observatories—History. I. Title.
QB88.F55 1994
522’.29794’98—dc20 93-46374
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ISBN 0-06-092670-8 (pbk.)
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* The astronomer’s measurements of angular distances are like the latitude and longitude used for earthbound navigation. The 360 degrees of a circle are each divided into sixty arc minutes, and each arc minute is divided into sixty are seconds. The are second is 1/1,296,000th of a circle.
* The spectrograph, a glorious discovery of nineteenth-century German science, is the primary research tool of the astronomer. Using a fine grating or prism, the astronomer can spread the light of the distant object into a spectrum, like a rainbow. Each chemical element, when heated, emits light of specific colors (wavelengths). The spectra that the astronomer records from distant objects include bright lines and black strips at various wavelengths, telltale signatures of the emission or absorption of specific wavelengths of light. By comparing the spectrum of a distant object with reference spectra, the astronomer can determine the presence or absence of chemical elements in the distant body. Spectra also enable the astronomer to classify types of stars and other celestial objects by color and, by measuring shifts from the expected position of various lines on the spectra, to determine the motion of distant objects.
* Shapley had made some fundamental mistakes. He assumed that Cepheid variables in the globular clusters did not differ from those in the Milky Way. In fact, the Cepheids in the globular clusters belong to a different stellar population and are approximately two magnitudes fainter at a given period than classical (Population I) Cepheids. At the same time Shapley underestimated the magnitude of the Milky Way Cepheids because he did not make provision for the dimming of the apparent brightness of stars due to absorption of light by interstellar material. With striking luck the two mistakes cancelled each other out, and his estimates of the size of the Milky Way, and of the position of the sun within the Milky Way, were not far off.
He had been flat wrong about the spiral nebulae. Looking back years later, Shapley wrote, “I consider this a blunder of mine because I faithfully went along with my friend Van Maanen and he was wrong on the proper motions of galaxies—that is, their cross motions…. I stood by Van Maanen.” Shapley had made a classic scientist’s mistake: citing the work of a colleague and friend on trust.
* Escaping to Europe to cure nervous exhaustion was another American custom. In the James family a trip to Europe was the “reward” for whichever child was most ill. Henry often campaigned for as long as a year with hypochondriac symptoms to finagle the trip for himself over his brother William and sister Alice.
* Chrétien later said that the exposure had only been forty-five minutes. The experience seems to have left no scars: In the 1920s Chrétien collaborated with Ritchey on the telescopc design that was to bear their names.
* Adams later said it was Vega, and in her biography of Hale, and again in her history of Palomar, Helen Wright repeats Adams’s account. Vega is a summer star. At three in the morning in early November, Vega would be below the horizon. A more likely candidate would have been Capella, in the constellation Auriga. Hale’s diary said only, “With Alfred Noyes to Mountain. First observations with 100”-Jupiter, Moon, Saturn.”
* Astronomers use a variety of measurements for distances that are far too large to express conveniently or usefully in terrestrial units like the mile or kilometer. The AU, or astronomical unit, used for relatively small regions like the solar system, is the mean distance from the earth to the sun, or approximately 93 million miles. The LY, or light-year, is the distance light travels in one year, approximately six trillion miles. The parsec, sometimes abbreviated pc, is approximately 3.26 light-years. Kiloparsecs (kpc), one thousand parsecs, and megaparsecs (Mpc), one million parsecs, are used for extreme distances.
* The discussions at the Monastery table are legendary. By tradition the astronomer observing on the one-hundred-inch telescope took the place of honor at the head of the dinner table and was granted the privilege of guiding the discussion for the evening. Hubble was famed and feared for his habit of arriving for dinner fifteen minutes early, looking up an article on some obscure topic in the eleventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica in the library and channeling all discussion during dinner to the obscure topic about which he and he alone could be expected to know anything.
* The exceptions, the few spirals that were not receding, we now understand, were nearby galaxies that are gravitationally bound to the Milky Way and therefore do not participate in the expansion.
* Like so many ideas that emerged in the design of the two-hundred-inch telescope, Ritchey’s idea took many years to realize. In the 1990s several telescopes are under construction with composite mirrors, built up of thin s
egments, and ultralightweight mirrors with precast honeycombed backs. These new technologies rely on computer-controlled devices to adjust the precise alignment and shape of the mirror many times each second.
Ritchey finally succeeded in building a working Ritchey-Chrétien telescope at the Naval Observatory in Washington. He proved as intractable there as at Mount Wilson. Once, while removing the forty-inch primary mirror, he dropped it from the lifting slings to the steel deck of the observatory. The mirror miraculously survived, but Ritchey was banned from the Naval Observatory. The Ritchey-Chrétien design, refined with a Cassegrain lens originally designed by Gascoigne in Australia, and fifth-order optics developed by Ira Bowen, is currently used for most large telescopes, including the Keck telescope in Hawaii and the Hubble Space Telescope. Modern mirror-grinding and -polishing techniques, using computer-controlled polishing machinery, have made the complex hyperboloid shapes easier to figure; modern instrumentation favors the Cassegrain focus for most research programs; and the relatively short tube adapts well to modern, lightweight mountings.
* Hale’s concept was regularly employed after the 1960s by using a mercury torus, enclosed in a bag, under the mirror of new telescopes like the Du Pont one-hundred-inch telescope at Las Campanas. A later variation of the idea has been adapted in the 1990s for large telescopes built with meniscus mirrors, glass or quartz surfaces too thin to hold their shape without external support. The shape of the mirror is continously adjusted, many times each second, with computer-controlled actuators. The actuators are mechanical rather than the air or water cushion Hale envisioned. Telescopes with this design are currently under construction in Arizona and Chile.
* Recently cosmologists have begun exploring the possibility that a cosmological constant may be necessary after all.
* Caltech seemed to have no fears of nepotism or inbreeding. By 1930 Bowen’s colleagues on the physics faculty-Jesse DuMond, Charles Lauritsen, Victor Neher, and John Anderson-were all Caltech Ph.Ds.
* Cylindrical distortions are like the corrections put into eyeglass lenses to correct astigmatism. Rotate a cylindrically distorted lens, and the shape of the viewed objects changes with the rotation.
* Hale called it friction. An engineer, describing the frictional inertia of a heavy component in contact with another, would probably use the term stiction.