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Extragalactic research in Europe and the United States in the early 20th century
Author(s) -
Duerbeck H.W.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
astronomische nachrichten
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.394
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1521-3994
pISSN - 0004-6337
DOI - 10.1002/1521-3994(200212)323:6<534::aid-asna534>3.0.co;2-v
Subject(s) - cosmology , neglect , history , political science , astronomy , physics , psychology , psychiatry
While the theoretical foundations of modern relativistic cosmology were laid, to a large extent, by European researchers like Einstein, de Sitter, Friedmann, Lemaître, and others, observational cosmology was (and to a large extent, still is) dominated by US astronomers, working at Lick and Mt. Wilson observatories. From today's viewpoint, Hubble appears to dwarf all his – national and international – peers. However, Keeler and Curtis, Fath and Slipher carried put pioneering work in the US, as did Wolf, Wirtz, Lundmark, de Sitter in Europe, both by observation and by statistical analysis of data. European extragalactic research during the early 20th century is outlined and compared with studies in the United States. Reasons for the small impact of European research are a mixture of deliberate and accidental neglect and suppression, as well as the lack of technical and organizational infrastructure, which was especially noticeable after World War I.