Edwin Hubble
From Slackerpedia Galactica
Edwin Powell Hubble (November 20, 1889 – September 28, 1953) was an American astronomer who discovered that objects once believed to be nebula were galaxies. He also discovered cosmological redshift.
His father had always encouraged Edwin to become a lawyer and Hubble even spent some time practicing law. His passion was always astronomy however, and he claimed that he would prefer to be a second-rate astronomer than a first-rate lawyer. If his astronomy was second-rate then the lawyers really missed out.
After observing a Cepheid Variable Star in the Andromeda Galaxy (thought to be a nebula at the time) and thereby working out the distance to it, Hubble managed to increase the known size of the universe enormously. Now if you lost something somewhere in the universe it would be much more difficult to find. In order to help people find lost socks in this larger universe, an eponymous telescope was built.
