Hubble's law is the statement in physical cosmology that the redshift in light coming from distant galaxies is proportional to their distance. The law was first formulated by Edwin Hubble and Milton Humason in 1929 after nearly a decade of observations. It is considered the first observational basis for the expanding space paradigm and today serves as one of the pieces of evidence most often cited in support of the Big Bang. The most recent calculation of the proportionality constant used 2003 data from the satellite WMAP combined with other astronomical data, and yielded a value of 70.1 1.3 (km/s)/Mpc. This value agrees well with that of 72 8 km/s/Mpc obtained in 2001 by using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. In August, 2006, a less precise figure was obtained independently using data from NASA's orbital Chandra X-ray Observatory: 77 (km/s)/Mpc or about 2.510-18 s-1 with an uncertainty of 15%..
A decade before Hubble made his observations, a number of physicists and mathematicians had established a consistent theory of the relationship between space and time by using Einstein's field equations of general relativity. Applying the most general principles to the nature of the universe yielded a dynamic solution that conflicted with the then prevailing notion of a static universe.
Before the advent of modern cosmology, there was considerable talk about the size and shape of the universe. In 1920, the famous Shapley-Curtis debate took place between Harlow Shapley and Heber D. Curtis over this issue. Shapley argued for a small universe the size of the Milky Way galaxy and Curtis argued that the universe was much larger. The issue was resolved in the coming decade with Hubble's improved observations.
Edwin Hubble did most of his professional astronomical observing work at Mount Wilson Observatory, the world's most powerful telescope at the time. His observations of Cepheid variable stars in spiral nebulae enabled him to calculate the distances to these objects. Surprisingly, these objects were discovered to be at distances which placed them well outside the Milky Way. They continued to be called "nebulae" and it was only gradually that the term "galaxies" took over.
Combining his measurements of galaxy distances with Vesto Slipher's measurements of the redshifts associated with the galaxies, Hubble discovered a rough proportionality of the objects' distances. Though there was considerable scatter (now known to be caused by peculiar velocities), Hubble was able to plot a trend line from the 46 galaxies he studied and obtain a value for the Hubble constant of 500 km/s/Mpc (much higher than the currently accepted value due to errors in his distance calibrations).
In 1958, the first good estimate of H0, 75 km/s/Mpc, was published by Allan Sandage, but it would be decades before a consensus was achieved.
After Hubble's discovery was published, Albert Einstein abandoned his work on the cosmological constant (which he had designed to allow for a static solution to his equations). He later termed this work his "greatest blunder" since the assumption of a static universe had prevented him from predicting the expanding universe. Einstein made a famous trip to Mount Wilson in 1931 to thank Hubble for providing the observational basis for modern cosmology. LINK: articles/bobs-knobs-faq.html
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