Georges Lemaître and Stigler’s Law of Eponymy

Abstract

One of the greatest discoveries of modern times is that of the expanding Universe, almost invariably attributed to Hubble (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 15:168, 1929). What is not widely known is that the original treatise by Lemaître (Annales de la Société Scientifique de Bruxelles, Sèrie A 47:49, 1927) contained a rich fusion of both theory and of observation. The French paper was meticulously censored when published in English: all discussions of radial velocities and distances, and the very first empirical determination of H ₀ , were suppressed. Stigler’s law of eponymy is yet again affirmed: no scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer (Merton, American Sociological Review 22(6):635, 1957). An appeal is made for a Lemaître Telescope naming opportunity, to honour the discoverer of the expanding universe.

Note Added in Proof – “The History of This Science Competition Is Not Irrelevant” – Reflections by Lemaître Himself, in 1950

The world has before its eyes one of the most brilliant examples of Stigler’s law of eponymy –which in its simplest form, asserts that: no scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer. “Priorities in Scientific Discovery: A Chapter in the Sociology of Science” (Merton 1957) is of crucial importance in this context.

In a Comment published in Nature Mario Livio (Nature, 479, 171, 2011) has unearthed a letter from Lemaître to W. M. Smart (dated 9 March 1931). From that document, it is clear that Lemaître himself translated his 1927 paper into English and who also omitted his determination of the coefficient of expansion of the Universe (H ₀ ) from values of radial velocities available as of 1927. However, in his Comment Livio omits a vital reference, namely thoughts penned by Lemaître himself in 1950 (L’expansion de l’Univers, Bibliographie: Annales d’Astrophysique, 13, 344):

About my contribution of 1927, I do not want to discuss if I was a professional astronomer. I was, in any event, an IAU member (Cambridge, 1925), and I had studied astronomy for two years, a year with Eddington and another year in the U.S. observatories. I visited Slipher and Hubble and heard him in Washington, in 1925, making his memorable communication about the distance [to] the Andromeda nebula. While my Mathematics bibliography was seriously in default since I did not know the work of Friedmann, it is perfectly up to date from the astronomical point of view; I calculate [in my contribution] the coefficient of expansion (575 km per sec per megaparsecs, 625 with a questionable statistical correction). Of course, before the discovery and study of clusters of nebulae, there was no point to establish the Hubble law, but only to calculate its coefficient. The title of my note leaves no doubt on my intentions: A Universe with a constant mass and increasing radius as an explanation of the radial velocity of extra-galactic nebulae. I apologize that all of this is too personal. But, as noted by the author (p. 161) “the history of this science competition is not irrevelant” and it is useful to highlight the details to enable an exact understanding of the scope of the argument that can be drawn from this. (Emphasis added)

In 1950, Lemaître clearly did not want the rich fusion of theory and observations contained in his 1927 paper to be buried in the sands of time.