The field of physics has some of the biggest names in science. They’ve become household names, and rightly so; what Einstein and Hawking have discovered is incomparable to others. Or is it? Is that it? With so many names, Vera Rubin is unfairly forgotten. So who exactly is she?
She is someone immortalised through physics, a pioneer in the field of astronomy, a brilliant mind.
She was born on July 23rd, 1928, and died on December 25th, 2016. She worked tirelessly, exploring all that she could. The reason for her fame was that she was the first person who identified the difference between the theoretical and experimental angular momentum of galaxies, using a spectrometer, which spreads out the spectrum of light coming from stars, to measure the doppler shifts.
Doppler shift refers to the doppler effect, where when a source of light comes towards us, it gets a blue tinge, and when it goes away, it gets a red tinge, due to the wavelengths of light.
Through measuring this, they calculated the speed of stars, assuming that the center of a galaxy would have more stars and thus faster speed as compared to the fringes, but that wasn’t so. The speed was same throughout, meaning that there was unseen matter out there. This was the discovery of dark matter, or matter that we cannot measure, cannot identify, cannot see.
As Rubin had found incredibly compelling evidence, along with her consistent and precise observations, the theory could not be disproved. There have been countless studies that have tested out her theory, and they all have followed the same path as hers. Her work in the field of astronomy is incredible, and for that she has won many accolades, deservedly so.
Although there have been many calls for her to earn a Nobel prize, she has been denied due to her gender, an horrible and unfair treatment, called out by many current scientists. However, she still lives on in the hearts of all astronomers, lived on by her achievements, lived on forevermore.
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