Vera Rubin - Biography

Vera (Cooper) Rubin (born ) is an American astronomer who pioneered work on galaxy rotation rates. She is famous for uncovering the discrepancy between the predicted angular motion of galaxies and the observed motion, by studying galactic rotation curves. This phenomenon became known as the galaxy rotation problem.

Vera Rubin can be seen on the BBC documentary Most of Our Universe is Missing.

Scientific work

Currently, the theory of dark matter is the most popular candidate for explaining the galaxy rotation problem. The alternative theory of MOND (Modified Newtonian Dynamics) has little support in the community. Rubin, however, supports the MOND approach, stating "If I could have my pick, I would like to learn that Newton's laws must be modified in order to correctly describe gravitational interactions at large distances. That's more appealing than a universe filled with a new kind of sub-nuclear particle."

After she had earned an A.B. from Vassar College (1948), she tried to enroll at Princeton but never received their graduate catalog as women there were not allowed in the graduate astronomy program until 1975.

She applied to Cornell University, where she studied physics under Philip Morrison, Richard Feynman, and Hans Bethe. There she earned an M.A. in 1951. Then in 1954 at Georgetown University she earned a Ph.D.

Vera Rubin also has honorary Doctors of Science degrees from numerous universities, including Harvard and Yale. Rubin is currently a research astronomer at the Carnegie Institution of Washington. She is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. So far she has co-authored 114 peer reviewed research papers.

She is the author of Bright Galaxies Dark Matters (Masters of Modern Physics), AIP Press, 1996, ISBN 1-56396-231-4

She also served on the board of trustees for Science Service, now known as Society for Science & the Public, from 2002-2008.

Personal

All four of her children have earned Ph.D.s in the natural sciences or mathematics: David (1950), Ph.D. geology, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey; Judith Young (1952), Ph.D. cosmic-ray physics, an astronomer at the University of Massachusetts; Karl (1956), Ph.D. mathematics, a mathematician at the University of California at Irvine; and Allan (1960), Ph.D. geology, a geologist at Princeton University.

Religious views

Rubin is an observant Jew, and sees no conflict between science and religion. In an interview, she stated: "In my own life, my science and my religion are separate. I'm Jewish, and so religion to me is a kind of moral code and a kind of history. I try to do my science in a moral way, and, I believe that, ideally, science should be looked upon as something that helps us understand our role in the universe."

Honors

Awards

• Dickson Prize for Science
• National Medal of Science (1993)
• Henry Norris Russell Lectureship in 1994
• Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1996

She was only the second female recipient of this medal, the first being Caroline Herschel in 1828.

• Gruber Cosmology Prize by the Peter Gruber Foundation (2002)
• Bruce Medal in 2003
• James Craig Watson Medal in 2004
• Adler Planetarium Women in Space Science Award in 2009
• American University Honorary Doctor of Science in 2011

Named after her

• Asteroid 5726 Rubin
• Rubin-Ford effect

In popular culture

• In the 1st episode of the 22nd Season of The Simpsons, Milhouse lists "Vers Rubin" (sic) as his pick for the 2010 Physics Nobel prize.

See also

• Galaxy rotation problem

Notes

Further reading

• Robert Rubin, "Vera Rubin" in OUT OF THE SHADOWS: Contributions of 20th Century Women to Physics, Nina Byers and Gary Williams, ed., Cambridge University Press 2006.

External links

• Vera Rubin at Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution of Washington
• Vera Rubin autobiography notes at Scientific American
• Vera Rubin in CWP at UCLA
• Vera Rubin's Dark Universe
• Vera Rubin and Dark Matter, American Museum of Natural History
• Vera Rubin at Peter Gruber Foundation
• Astronomical Society of the Pacific: Women in Astronomy
• Lake Afton Public Observatory: Women in Astronomy
• Princeton University 2005 honorary degrees press release
• Oral History interview transcript with Vera Rubin 21 September 1995, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library and Archives
• Adler Planetarium Women in Space Science Award