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Edwin Hubble, Discoverer of the Universe
By William Miller

This month, we examine the urban legend around Edwin Hubble and his pipe, namely, is it true that he refused to have his photograph taken unless he was holding a pipe?

Hubble working at his desk in the Mount Wilson Observatory,
Pasadena, Calif.

Edwin Hubble is called the father of cosmology.  He was the first to demonstrate that there are galaxies beyond just our own Milky Way Galaxy.  He then went on to show that these galaxies are all flying away from each other and thus that the entire Universe is expanding.  The proof of this expansion lead to the conclusion that at some point, in the extreme distant past, there must have been a beginning in which the Universe was very small and compact, hence the Big Bang.  Prior to his work in the 1920’s, astronomers believed that the Milky Way Galaxy was the entire Universe.  Now we know that even our own galaxy is an insignificant one among 100 trillion other galaxies.

Smoking a Lumberman while reading the international optics journal, Optik (published in German).

Born in Missouri, Edwin Hubble (1889-1953) has been described by many biographers as having a dry personality and not many social graces.  During his early career as a physicist, he took on the affect of an English gentleman to impress his colleges and gain status and respect.  He picked up the British accent and other English mannerisms while studying at Oxford.  The fact that he brought them back with him to the US irritated some of his American colleges… probably the effect that he desired.  To do this, he wore tweed jackets, spoke with a contrived British accent and visibly sported a pipe.  I think we can forgive the young Edwin for this, what youth doesn’t experiment with his identity as he transitions into being a man of his own.

Famous picture of Hubble with the new 200-inch Hale Telescope, the largest in the world at the time, which he helped construct on
Mount Palomar.

Hubble picked up the joy of pipe smoking from his father and eventually had a very sizable collection of pipes.  It has been recorded that his favorite pipes were made by Dunhill. He enjoyed the contemplative nature of pipe smoking and often posed for pictures holding one.  The rumor among the astronomy community is that he would not allow his picture taken without a pipe.  Given what we know of his use of it to help create his earlier identity, along with the tweed jackets and British accent, it is certainly believable that this may well have been true.

An older Hubble and his favorite cat, Copernicus.

Later, as his fame grew due to his own scientific accomplishments, he dropped the British accent, but he continued to carry his pipe with him wherever he went, even after he had given up smoking it on his doctor’s advice at the end of his life.  My favorite quote from Hubble is, “Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure Science.”   One can see him saying this while contemplatively drawing on his favorite Dunhill and enjoying watching the stars coming out in the evening.