Edwin Powell Hubble Quotes

The outstanding feature, however, is the possibility that the velocity-distance relation may represent the de Sitter effect, and hence that numerical data may be introduced into discussions of the general curvature of space.

The history of astronomy is a history of receding horizons.

With increasing distance, our knowledge fades, and fades rapidly. Eventually, we reach the dim boundary - the utmost limits of our telescopes. There, we measure shadows, and we search among ghostly errors of measurement for landmarks that are scarcely more substantial. The search will continue. Not until the empirical resources are exhausted, need we pass on to the dreamy realms of speculation.

Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure Science.

A scientist naturally and inevitably ... mulls over the data and guesses at a solution. He proceeds to testing of the guess by new data-predicting the consequences of the guess and then dispassionately inquiring whether or not the predictions are verified.

Observations always involve theory.

We do not know why we are born into the world, but we can try to find out what sort of a world it is - at least in its physical aspects.

The great spirals ... apparently lie outside our stellar system.

Wisdom cannot be directly transmitted, and does not readily accumulate through the ages.

The great spirals, with their enormous radial velocities and insensible proper motions, apparently lie outside our Solar system.

Observation always involves theory.

We find them smaller and fainter, in constantly increasing numbers, and we know that we are reaching into space, farther and farther, until, with the faintest nebulae that can be detected with the greatest telescopes, we arrive at the frontier of the known universe.