Harlow Shapley Project

In September 2018 I made my first visit to Mount Wilson Observatory (MWO), perched on a craggy outcrop of the San Gabriel Mountains a mile above Pasadena, California. At the observatory between 1914 and 1919 my grandfather Harlow Shapley discovered the true shape of Milky Way galaxy and our place in it.

Harlow Shapley was very famous as a scientist. He located the center of the Milky Way galaxy, finding that our solar system is far from the Galactic Center. As Director from 1921 to 1953, Shapley built the Harvard College Observatory into the foremost US graduate school in astronomy and “a mecca” for astronomers from around the world. From 1953 Shapley published that life in the universe would arise on planets in “the liquid water belt” distance from their stars. This standard is applied in the search for extraterrestrial life today.

Lloyd Shapley received the Nobel prize from King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden at the annual grand ceremony in December 2012. Among the Nobelists my uncle Lloyd was the tallest. At age 89, he was the oldest. Though wobbly he was dignified and humorous.

Introduction: Why this Book Matters

“I would often look out my window on the top floor and see two or four at play with the rubber ring on the deck tennis court next to the woods. Bart Bok, Fred Whipple, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Martin Schwartzschild, to name only a few, tried their skill at this game.”