Rob Sheldon: If Hubble’s Law changes its name, will “Darwinian” evolution be next?
What about Alfred Russel Wallace? Our physics color commentator Rob Sheldon on the Hubble’s Law name change, to recognize “Big Bang” priest, Fr. Georges Lemaitre: — The misappropriation of laws is a well-known institution in science. Avogadro had nothing to do with his constant. The French just didn’t want to name it after the Austrian Loschmidt who discovered it. Likewise the Bose-Einstein condensate had little to do with Einstein; Bose couldn’t get his paper published in an English-speaking journal, so he asked Einstein to send it into Zeitschrift fur Physik. Hannes Alfven had no knowledge of “Alfven layers” “Alfven boundaries” and so on. But he was the only plasma physicist to get a Nobel Prize, so he had name recognition. Read More ›