The Perfect Machine (82 page)

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Authors: Ronald Florence

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astrophysics laboratory at, 125, 151, 160, 213
astrophysics machine shop at, 154, 257, 265, 346, 350, 364, 370, 392
budget problems and, 387-389, 391-392
California Street optics laboratory of, 154-155, 160, 187, 195, 213, 243, 269-270, 334, 347, 350, 389; see also mirror, Palomar two-hundred-inch
endowment and, 91, 114, 131, 335-340, 358
faculty recruited for, 151-152
Geology Department of, 209, 211
in Great Depression, 159-160
growth of, 113-114, 148-150
Mount Wilson’s tense relations with, 150-151, 217-219, 335-340, 418
Palomar grant and, 75, 76, 78, 79, 86, 87, 88, 91, 105
site selection and, 209, 211
in World War II, 347-349, 363-364

Carlson, Llewellyn, 318

Carnegie, Andrew, 8, 36, 47, 48, 70, 77

Mount Wilson visited by, 44-45
NAS building funded by, 82-83
Rockefeller’s rivalry with, 81-82, 86

Carnegie Institution, 36-40, 75-76, 111-112, 159, 165, 208, 335-340

establishment of, 36
Hooker telescope project and, 42, 43, 47, 90
Mount Wilson-Caltech relations and, 217, 219, 335-340, 417-418
Palomar endowed by, 335-340, 358, 389, 391
Palomar grant and, 75, 79-88

Carpentier, Georges, 60

Carty, J. J., 78, 79, 85, 86, 87, 111, 168

Cepheid variable stars, 14-15, 22n-23n, 50, 60, 62, 63, 67, 69, 105, 258, 281, 302, 353, 395, 403-404, 406

Chadwick, James, 215

Chaplin, Charlie, 49

charge-coupled devices (CCDs), 408, 410, 414, 417

Chase, Stuart, 159

Chretien, Henri, 50, 123, 129n, 414

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), 212

Clark, Alvan, 26, 30, 31, 103

Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis, 247

Coe, Conway, 347

Cole, Nate, 247

Collier’s, 380

Compton, Karl, 347

Conant, James, 347, 357

Condon, Edward, 72

Congress, U.S., 159

Consolidated Steel, 292-295

Copernicus, Nicolaus, 18

Cornell University, 418

Corning Evening Leader, 198, 203, 207

Corning Fire Department, 235

Corning Glass Works, 77, 165-207, 209, 220-226, 232-241, 244-254, 280-281, 340-341

additional telescope projects of, 191-192, 223, 233-234
custard cup technique attempted at, 175
description of, 137-138, 232
disk costs at, 139-140, 168, 340
early Pyrex experiments at, 138-140, 158
earthquake at, 241
failed two-hundred-inch disk produced at, 199-207, 209, 220-223, 389
flood at, 234-237
GE quartz disk efforts and, 168, 173-174, 175
media, publicity and, 168-169, 181, 196-205, 208, 223-225, 236, 239-240, 244-247, 249, 250
new Pyrex formulation developed at, 189
new mold anchor design at, 221-222
New York meeting with, 167-169
120-inch disk produced by, 190-195, 345
Pyrex blocks produced by, 274
Pyrex solubility problem discovered at, 183-184, 188-189
quartz disks produced by, 415
sagging technique at, 174, 340
Schmidt disks produced at, 340-341
shipping and, 222, 233
successful two-hundred-inch disk produced at, 223-226, 232-241, 244-254
test and auxiliary disks produced at, 169-195
third two-hundred-inch disk proposed at, 278, 281, 282, 298
two-hundred-inch disk shipped by, 247-254
wages at, 225

Coue, Emile, 89

Coughlin, Charles C., 219, 245

Couts, Cave C., 211

Crab Nebula, 354

Crossley, Edward, 34

Crossley reflector, 19-20, 34, 383 see also Lick Observatory

Crown, George, 176

cummings, e. e., 148

Curtis, Heber, 35, 61, 122, 158, 225, 383

background and personality of, 5-6, 18-19
Corning disk order of, 191, 223, 233, 237, 280
NAS debate and, 2-9, 18-23, 61

Curtiss, Hanford, 202, 204

dark matter, 308

Day, Arthur L., 46, 80, 165, 168, 178, 189, 198, 202, 209, 217-218, 244, 276

American Ceramic Society speech of, 196-197

Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, 247, 251

Depression, Great, 130-131, 142, 158-160, 161, 179, 183, 197-198, 219, 245-246, 334, 343-344

de Sitter, Willem, 150, 303

Dina, Assan Farid, 96

Dirac, Paul, 148, 362

dome, see observatory building, Palomar

Doppler shift, see red shift

Dowd, Jerry, 58, 260, 294, 331

Draco, 304

DuBridge, Lee A., 391-392, 393

DuMond, Jesse, 152n

Dunham, Theodore, 147, 166, 194

David Dunlap Observatory, 191

Dunn, Gano, 77, 78, 79, 80, 84, 87, 89, 111, 120, 124

Du Pont, 141, 357

Du Pont telescope, 135n

earthquakes, 241, 269

Eddington, Sir Arthur S., 4, 16, 150

Edison, Thomas, 98, 102, J15, 169, 172

Eiffel, Gustave, 41

Einstein, Albert, 59, 65--66, 69, 148-150, 151, 153, 166, 209, 217, 240, 291, 304, 314, 359, 380

celebrity of, 7-8, 148
Germany left by, 160--161
NAS debate and, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12

Einstein, Mrs. Albert, 149

Ellerman, Ferdinand, 107-108, 180, 253

Ellis, A. L., 100, 115-119, 122, 126, 127, 128, 132-136, 140-147, 154-158, 161-164, 166-167, 171, 173

doubts about mirror harbored by, 134-135

Ellis, Guerdon, 21 t

Enterprise Engine Company, 316

Epstein, Paul, 124, 178, 214

Eveleth, C. E., 167

Fecker & Co., 60

Ferguson, Homer, 226-227, 262

Fermi, Enrico, 72

Feynman, Richard, 372n

Fie1 & Cie., 28

Fleming, A. H., 131

Flemming, Williammina P., 14

Flexner, Abraham, 71

Flexner, Simon, 85

Flying Horse Telescope Oil, 319, 402

Ford, Hannibal, 229, 310-311, 320

Ford, Henry, 10, 343

Fore River Shipbuilding Company, 53, 125

Fonune, 159, 179, 284

Fosdick, Raymond, 88, 276, 337, 339, 341, 388, 393

Foshay, Wilbur, 139

Foucault, J. B. L., 324

foundations, operation of, 79-80, 81-82

Foussat (sheep farmer), 210

Fredericks, Frank, 288, 317, 318

Friedmann, Aleksandr, 66

Froebel, Guenther, 264, 287

Gage, O. A., 167, 191, 201

galaxies:

clusters of, 308, 360
island universes debate and, 4, 20-23, 61, 62-63, 383
use of term, 302
see also nebulae

Galileo Galilei, 18, 28

Gehring, Dr., 49

General Education Board (GEB), 71-80, 158, 276

see also International Education Board

General Electric, 77, 98-100, 111, 115-120, 126-130, 132-136, 140-147, 154-158, 161-164, 165-167, 171, 229, 263, 388

bills and cost estimates from, 119, 127-128, 132, 140, 143, 147, 157, 163, 168
Corning Pyrex disk manufacturing and, 168, 173-174, 175
dropped as disk maker, 157-158, 161-164, 165-167
fuel consumption at, 126-127, 140-141
publicity department of, 142, 147, 162, 166-167, 168-169

General Petroleum Corp., 318

Geology Department, Caltech, site selection and, 209, 21 1

Gianetti, Miss (secretary), 58-59, 121, 186, 230, 275

Glass Industry, The, 147

globular clusters, 15-18, 22n-23n, 50, 302, 360

“Gospel of Wealth, The” (Carnegie), 81

Goudsmit, Samuel, 72

Graf Zeppelin, 102

Green, Lloyd, 379

Greenstein, Jesse, 362, 391-392, 399

Grey, Earl, 46

Griffith Observatory, 389

Groves, Leslie, 357

Gunn, Jim, 418

Guttenberg, Beno, 209

Hale, Evelina Conklin, 26, 27, 29-30, 38, 43, 47, 393

Hale, George, vii, 24, 58, 69, 89, 97, 135, 148, 153, 160, 161, 213, 217, 226-227, 228, 231, 263, 282, 291, 295, 299, 305, 310, 324, 338, 344-345, 358, 383, 415

assessment of, 313-314
background and family of, 25-27
Caltech-Mount Wilson relations and, 150, 151, 217, 218, 219
Corning Pyrex disk manufacturing and, 166, 168, 171, 177, 178, 185, 189, 194, 195, 198, 209, 241, 244
death of, 312-313
disk shipment and, 233, 247, 248, 250, 253
financing of early projects of, 26, 30, 31, 35-37, 38, 41-47, 90
foreign trips of, 46, 47-48, 58, 111-112, 120-121, 194
GE disk experiments and, 98, 100, 115, 118, 140, 141, 142, 146, 154, 157, 158, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167
Harper’s article of, 73, 79, 83, 139
headaches and visions of, 25, 26, 32, 43, 45-46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 58, 78, 90, 110-111, 121, 135, 180, 186, 194, 218, 225, 230, 244, 247, 275-276, 286
I-Iooker telescope project and, 41-57
Lick telescope visited by, 29-30
McDowell’s style and, 296
Mason’s trust of, 153-154
media and, 100-103, 142, 168, 169, 179, 181, 208
Mount Wilson sixty-inch project and, 37-39, 41
NAS debate and, 3-4, 5, 11, 23
Palomar buildings and, 151, 155, 255, 315
Palomar grant and, 64, 70-88, 91, 92, 132, 134, 154, 281, 336, 388
Palomar mirror design group and, 179-180
Palomar mounting design and, 124, 135, 186, 212, 214
Palomar site selection and, 106-111, 180, 209, 210, 401
Ritchey’s dispute with, 48
Schmidt wide-field telescope and, 259, 260
semi-retirement of, 58-59
telescope named for, 313-314, 393
Westinghouse work and, 286
Woodbury’s book and, 331
worsening condition of, 275-276
Yerkes Observatory and, 31-36, 39-40, 41

Hale, Mrs. William, 25, 30

Hale, William, 25, 26, 30, 35, 90

Hale telescope, see Palomar telescope

Hall, George, 373-374, 380, 392

Hamburg Observatory, 258

Hammond, John W., 142, 147

Harding, Warren Go, 10, 85

Harper, William, 30

Harper’s Magazine, 73, 79, 83, 139

Harrington, Robert, 397

Harris (ladler), 225

Harris, Fred, 410, 414

Harrison, Nathan, 210n

Hartness, James, 94

Harvard College Observatory, 26, 105, 155, 359

disk order for, 191, 223, 280
Shapley appointed director of, 5, 59-60

Harvard College Observatory Circular, 14

Heisenberg, Werner, 72, 148

Henderson (Warner & Swasey official), 225

Hendrix, Don, 341, 367-368, 385, 386, 392, 394-398, 404

Herbert, James, 218

Hertzsprung, Ejnar, 14, 15

Hickman (ladler), 225

Hill, Byron, 255-257, 260, 292, 294, 295, 296, 307, 364, 382n

after completion, 405, 413, 414
and final trials and adjustments, 389, 391, 395
mirror coating and, 385
mirror installation and, 386
mirror move and, 373, 376, 377, 378, 379
mounting assembly and, 315, 316, 317, 318, 322, 342, 370
residence construction supervised by, 315-316
telescope balanced by, 371-372
Weber’s truck hoisted by, 372
in World War 11, 352
Zwicky’s conflict with, 260

Hodgkinson, Francis, 264-265

Hoge, W. P., 53

Hogness, To, 72

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 46

Hood, Harrison, 183, 189

Hooker, John Do, 41-42, 43, 46-47, 48, 77, 79, 90

Hooker, Mrs. John D., 43

Hooker telescope (one-hundred-inch telescope), 41-57, 62-63, 90, 123, 383, 418

corrective lens for, 68
first light at, 52-56
glass disk for, 42-43, 44, 46, 171
mirror grinding for, 47-48, 49, 53
mounting of, 53-56, 90, 157, 166, 185
temperature problems of, 55-57, 96, 144, 157-158

Hoover, Herbert, 102, 255, 336-337

Hostetter, J. Co, 167, 168, 173, 203, 206, 229, 245

Corning left by, 275
undue credit claimed by, 194, 221, 240-241, 272

Houghton, Amory, 165, 181, 198, 200, 205, 209, 223, 224, 241, 273, 274-275, 278, 281, 282, 298, 340

Houghton family, 137, 139

Howland, Charles P., 109

Hubble, Edwin, vii, 75, 240, 253, 281, 302-303, 304, 305, 359, 380-381, 397, 403, 404

background of, 60-61

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