Abstract
Astronomy is a revolutionary science. The Copernican Revolution changed how humans saw the universe. So did the telescope, as did the invention of astrophotography and spectroscopy in the nineteenth century. Hubble’s calculations of distance expanded the dimensions of the universe, Einstein’s special theory of relativity decentralized it, and Lemaître’s primordial atom gave it a new origin. Astronomy after World War II inherited all of these revolutions. By the later 1940s and early 1950s the universe was one created by the Big Bang, constantly expanding, billions of light-years in age and dimensions, and full of countless stars and galaxies beyond the Milky Way.
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References
Baldwin JE (1958) The radio emission from the Galaxy and the Andromeda nebula. Comparison of the large-scale structure of the galactic system with that of other stellar systems. In: Roman NG (ed) Proceedings from IAU symposium no 5 held in Dublin, 2 Sept 1955. International Astronomical Union. Symposium no 5, Cambridge University Press, p 44
Hanbury Brown R, Hazard C (1951) Radio emission from the Andromeda nebula. Mon Not Roy Astron Soc 111:357
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Schultz, D. (2012). Astronomy and Andromeda at the Close of the Twentieth Century. In: The Andromeda Galaxy and the Rise of Modern Astronomy. Astronomers' Universe. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3049-0_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3049-0_10
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