Into the Impossible With Brian Keating - Ashley Yeager: The Brilliant Legacy of Astronomer Vera Rubin (#175)

Episode Date: August 17, 2021

Ashley Yeager is an associate editor at The Scientist. Previously, she worked as a freelance writer, editor and multimedia producer, and also at the Simons Foundation as a science writer, at Science News as a web producer and at Duke University as a writer and multimedia producer. She has an undergraduate degree in journalism from the University of Tennessee and a master's in science writing from MIT. She co-chairs the education committee of the National Association of Science Writers. Twitter: @ashleyjyeager In Bright Galaxies, Dark Matter, and Beyond, Ashley Jean Yeager tells the story of Rubin's life and work, recounting her persistence despite early dismissals of her work and widespread sexism in science. Yeager describes Rubin's childhood fascination with stars, her education at Vassar and Cornell, and her marriage to a fellow scientist. At first, Rubin wasn't taken seriously; she was a rarity, a woman in science, and her findings seemed almost incredible. Some observatories in midcentury America restricted women from using their large telescopes; Rubin was unable to collect her own data until a decade after she had earned her PhD. Still, she continued her groundbreaking work, driving a scientific revolution. She received the National Medal of Science in 1993, but never the Nobel Prize—perhaps overlooked because of her gender. She's since been memorialized with a ridge on Mars, an asteroid, a galaxy, and most recently, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory—the first national observatory named after a woman. 00:00:00 Intro 00:03:57 Vera Rubin as a Scientist. 00:09:27 Contributions of the people that supported Vera Rubin. 00:11:09 Vera Rubin during WWII 00:15:17 The rotational model of the universe. 00:18:57 The Vassar College Plot! Did Vera "discover" dark matter first? 00:22:26 The methods of Vera Rubin and her collaboration with Kent Ford 00:25:48 How did Vera Rubin finall gain acceptance of the dark matter phenomenon? 00:34:50 Vera Rubin as an advocate for women in science. Support our Sponsors LinkedIn Jobs! Use this link to post your first job ad for FREE LinkedIn.com/impossible biOptimizers for better sleep https://magbreakthrough.com/impossible Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. So today we are joined with a phenomenal writer, a deep thinker, and someone who's incredibly astute about the history of astronomy and physics and has profiled one of the titans of all-time astronomy, but in the particular the last 50 or so years. And that's Ashley Yeager, who's joining us all the way from North Carolina. Ashley, how are you doing today? Thank you for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. I am, I'm super excited to be here and I look forward to talking about dark matter and Vera Rubin and the history of astronomy. These are all things that I've been reading and thinking about since I did

my graduate work. So I'm excited to share more. Yes, and you are a renowned writer and member of the scientific writing community, but also an expert on the topic on the subject matter. And I always like to begin my episodes with authors who are joining me, honor me by coming on like yourself, is play a game called Ignoring Advice. So the advice that we always get, right, Ashley, is don't judge a book by its cover. Why would you do that? But, you know, in most cases, it's the one thing that you have to go on.

How do you know the book is good unless you know the author, you know, she or he has written something before I hadn't done that. And the publisher wouldn't let me or most authors really touch the cover. But this is an MIT press, another MIT press, smash soon to come out. And I just wanted to play that little game with you. How did you come up with the title? What's the idea behind the cover and the subtitle of this fascinating new book? Yeah, we played around a lot with the title.

My working title was All the Matter We Cannot See, which is kind of a take on one of my favorite books, All the Light We Cannot See. But there were some questions about, we wanted to get Vera in the title. We wanted to get Dark Matter in the title. And so we were thinking about the book that she had written, her collection of essays called Bright Galaxies Dark Matters.

And so as we started to think about the title, we're like, well, maybe we can use that and kind of go beyond that. And that's what we did, adding and beyond, to really kind of explore what else about her life wasn't really covered in that book. and also then explain that in the subtitle of the life of Astronomer Revereign, just talking about her life and kind of what made her unique and really what set of principles she lived by that I think we can all take away from the book and try to apply in our own lives. And not only, can you hold up the front cover?

I have not received a hard copy yet. I am going to buy a copy, but I'm also expecting a free copy because on the very back, there may be, and I love that picture of her. She's such a, like, I don't know, what do you call a female stud? She's just such a badass. I just love her so much. I regret that I didn't get to meet her. I talked about her a lot in my book, my first book.

But I want to know, especially the back cover. If someone happens to judge the back cover, what will they find there? So on the back, there are three endorsements, one lovely one by you. And I can go ahead and read that if you'd like to. I haven't seen it in three months, though. I was so flattered. It says a mesmerizing and worthy compliment to Ruben's own bright galaxies, dark matters. Yeager's tendered portrait illuminates the scientific soul of one of history's most brilliant navigators of the heavens,

in which I think is just beautiful because it is so true. I mean, she was just an incredible scientist, an incredible person, and she really did show us how beautiful space can be when we stop to take a look at it. So talk about Vera Rubin as a scientist. What did you learn about her? What's her heroine's journey? You know, kind of the obstacle she faced, the people she met along the way, and how she returned with the magic elixir, you know, like Luke Skywalker does,

you know, this classic story of the hero's journey. I found resonant throughout your wonderful new book. So talk about her challenges, her story or struggles early on and how she resolved them for our benefit. Yeah, well, I think what was really interesting was she was in a family that was very supportive of her curiosity. And so her parents really fostered that. They let her, you know, they didn't love that she stayed up at night and looked at the stars out the window, but she did. And so they were very encouraging and actually took her to some amateur astronomy meetings in Washington, D.C., where she grew up. And so I think she had the sense that this was something that she was passionate about, something that she could do.

But being in school in the 1930s, 1940s, you know, women weren't really encouraged to do science and math. So, you know, there's this lovely story where she wants to take a drafting class, and she has to go to the boy's wing to do that. And so she does, you know. And so I think that's kind of the beginning of where she starts to experience some of these challenges in terms of understanding, well, there might be some pushback, but I'm just going to continue to do what I do. And even in high school, her physics teacher wasn't the most supportive. He basically said, as long as you stay away from physics, you'll be fine. And when you go to college, well, she majored in astronomy. So didn't take his advice.

And so I think, you know, she had over and over again kind of different people telling her, hey, you shouldn't be doing this. And what I found really refreshing and also a good reminder was rather than listening to those people, she would find people who did support her. And so, you know, as she goes on, she meets her husband, Robert Rubin, and he is also a scientist. And so she, you know, she and he talk about different physical principles. They talk about different papers that come out. And he really encourages her.

And, you know, she had applied to go to grad school. She got into Harvard but decided she wanted to be with. him so she goes to Cornell and again faces people who are not super supportive but you know he kind of helps her read different papers you know this particular one by george gamow about you know does the universe rotate and then she has another mentor martha star who helps her start to collect different data sets to be able to investigate that question and and then again she goes on and presents that um at the american uh astronaut Chemical Society meeting and, you know, get some blow back there.

I think people were pretty surprised by her findings, essentially that she found this kind of unexplained motion that potentially could be interpreted as the universe rotating. And so I think that startled a lot of people. But there were always one or two people who did encourage her. And even George Gamow himself reached out. and said, I was really fascinated by your paper. You know, what are you working on? Could, you know, would you be interested in questions that I had?

And so then she ends up doing her PhD. And obviously, I'm simplifying the story here. It sounds much neater and tidy than it really is. That's nice. Right. Yeah. Yeah. But, I mean, ultimately then she continues.

She just keeps persevering. She ends up at UC San Diego and works with the verbiages. And I know you wanted to talk a little bit about that. So I can, you know, we can, we can talk about how influential they were. They kind of really got her started giving her some of the tools to then go on to do the bigger projects that would lead to her providing evidence for dark matter. And when I think about, you know, her struggles and, you know, of course, being a woman and in that epoch, and still even to this day women suffer, you know, have more challenges, I would say, than most men do and other minorities

as well. But certainly back then. And she was, you know, one thing, if I had to summarize her personality, it was like courage and great. Because she was never one to like use her kind of the penalties, the challenges she had as an obstacle. She kind of like leaned into them as we'd say nowadays or the stoic, you know, the obstacle is the way sort of mentality. Talk about that. What she always seems like a peaceful warrior, at least until her husband died and you talk very touchingly about that at the book. Spoiler alert. I mean, she's not alive anymore. I don't think we can spoil that too much. But yeah, about that relationship, her father and also her husband as playing this role. And also Ken Ford, who often gets lost, I think, you know, unfortunately, because her story is so

powerful, but you bring him to light. So talk about these men in her life and what contributions they made. And then we'll talk about Margaret Burbage, my late great colleague. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. So, I mean, I think her father, her husband, Kent Ford, these were all people who saw potential and saw how curious that she was and really wanted to foster that and really support her. And, I mean, I just, I don't think they ever said, oh, well, you're a woman, so you can't do that. It was just you're an equal. You have amazing brain capacity. Let's explore that. let's figure out what you are curious about and use that to continue to explore the world. I mean, I think that was something else that those three in particular also had. Her father was very curious about how things worked. Her husband was very curious about how things worked. And, you know, Kent Ford was always kind of pressing the limits.

How can we get more information from the telescopes? How can we gather more light? what can we do? What can we push forward? And I think those combined forces really helped her excel in that they were aligned with what she wanted to do. They were aligned with her ability to be very curious and ask these different questions and then pursue them until, you know, all else fails, right? Just really going after trying to get answers. You said this place was steps from the water. We just haven't found the steps yet.

How much did we save? Enough. Enough to get lost. Or you could book a stay with Hilton. Welcome to your oceanfront room. Just steps from the water. The Hilton sale is on now. Book on Hilton.com or the Hilton app

and save up to 20% to get the stay you expected. When you want savings, not surprises. It matters where you stay. Hilton for the stay. wishing you could be there live for the big game, soaking up the atmosphere of the crowd. But too often, life gets busy, or the price hold you back. Priceline is here to help you make it happen.

With millions of deals on flights, hotels, and rental cars, you can go see the game live. Don't just dream about the trip. Book it with Priceline. Download the Priceline app or visitpriceline.com. Actual prices may vary, limited time offer. Right. And another interesting vignette, which I didn't know about her, is what she did during World War II. Can you talk about her activities during World War II, her patriotic duties and the other things that consumed her attention at that time? Yeah. So she was working in a service office doing a lot of paperwork. And that was, I think, one of those critical moments that she had and maybe other people have when they realize something that they don't. want to do. So she, her high school job was in the summers and when she was free was to basically

file papers and whether they were related to the war. I don't know for sure, but it was just something that she got up every day, rode the bus with her dad, went into the office, filed her papers, left. But the whole time she was thinking about the stars and thinking about astronomy and And she just had this memory of saying to herself, this is not what I want to do. How do I really go after what I do want to do so that I don't have to spend my life being kind of complacent? Or I hate to say bored. That's probably not the right word, but just not maximizing her capacity and kind of really fueling her curiosity. And I was unaware of her connection to Richard Feynman.

Can you talk about that? Yes, yeah. There's a lovely anecdote that, you know, she had had this crutch on Richard Feynman and he had come to Vassar, but she was a little bit too shy to talk to him. And so then her parents had actually arranged dinner with Robert Rubin's parents. They both lived in the same building. And so she went to dinner and they were talking and she had asked about Richard Feynman and Robert Rubin, you know, just very, very, kind of coolly and in his very calm, not bragging way, was like, oh, I'm a student of his. And so that kind of pete Vera Rubin's attention, she was like, oh, that's very interesting. And then she actually joined Robert at Vassar, or I'm sorry, at Cornell. And Richard Feynman was one of those allies that she had. She was having trouble with her astronomy supervisor. And, you know, Richard Feynman stepped in and said, as her physics advisor, you know, well, if you need to teach a course for this other advisor, you know, maybe we can flip the order of how you do the sequence of physics classes. And so,

again, I think that was someone kind of looking out for her and figuring out how can we help her rather than how do we hold her back. Grinnell continued the rich tradition with the baton passed on from Vera to Jill Tarter, past guest on the show. I think she was, her main name was Cornell even, so she has an even deeper Cornell connection. But what's fascinating about Vera and that early work, which again, you know, you're to be congratulated, I thought, I'm an expert, you know, I wrote about Vera in my book and I studied her in depth and, you know, she missed out on the Nobel Prize so many times. And in fact, we had a competition for, you know, on my website when the book was launched, who, you know, really should we petition the Nobel Committee on Change. change.org, you know, to basically, you know, force them to give a Nobel Prize to, even posthumously, and Vera was number one. And then not posthumously, thank God, is Jocelyn Bell Burnell. And I'm happy to say she's coming on my show on December 10th, which is the day they award the Nobel

prizes. And her on. But when I think about what Vera was doing at this time, again, the courage, because, and kind of the mystery of science, the serendipity of science comes through in this book. She was working on a rotating universe, which originally, at least in my conception, on my limited knowledge, goes back to Kurt Gödel of all people, who thought the universe was rotating. And of course, then startlingly, you know, she finds not that the universe is rotating and has the courage to go forward with the falsification of that claim, which Gödel, you know, had put forth and then Gamov had championed some years later. But then she finds other things are rotating, courtesy of colleagues here at San Diego. But first, let's talk about the rotating

model, because I want to know what are some of the fascinating aspects of that model? Why did people take it even seriously? And just to connect to another mystery that was also involved a female Titan of Astronomy in the name of Henrietta Swan Levitt, you know, there were people in the late 1800s, early 1900 who thought they saw Andromeda rotating. And it was rotating really fast, and that meant it had to be really close. So that was a false start. this twisting universe was a false start. But I think it's instructive because it led to these future development. Talk about the rotating universe.

What captivated Vera about that model? Yeah, I think what captivated her was kind of this idea that a lot of things rotate, right? Planets rotate around the sun. We now know that stars rotate around a galaxy. and you have these groups of galaxies that rotate around each other. And so her broader question kind of fueled by Gamal and some of the other galaxy work that she had started to do was, well, if you have all of these other smaller structures rotating, can we ask the question, why wouldn't the universe rotate?

Why wouldn't it follow a similar principle? And so I think that was kind of the great mystery. that really drew her in there was you had all these other examples of things in the universe that had this spinning motion. And so she just wanted to know on a larger scale, does that hold up? Do you see that with the entire universe, which I think is kind of a fantastical idea when you think about it? I mean, it's hard to wrap your mind around it.

But when you start to think about the logic that she and others used, it's, It's not super far-fetched. And so, like she did, she was like, well, I have this question. And so now I'll go out and I'll try to gather some data. And whatever the data tells me, that's what I'll go with as my conclusion. Yeah, I always point out that, you know, we physicists have mathematician envy in that girdle showed the limits of mathematics that there were closed formal systems who were, you know, causally incomplete. You could not logically, you know, derive the, can prove things from a

limited set of axioms that were self-consistent. He also found a contradiction in the U.S. Constitution. And that Einstein instructed him, don't mention that when you go for your immigration hearing. You know, I don't want to hear that you found a logical flaw in the U.S. Constitution. But he still maintained this thing that Carl Popper, you know, would rail against later, that, you know, kind of unfalsifiable versus falsifiable. And in her case, she actually, you know, was kind of over and done with it once it, once it proved that it was really not viable. She and Gamow, too, to his credit, moved on.

But Gertl never did. In fact, I get emails all the time and people send me things about the rotating universe, and that's what Gertl was talking about on his deathbed. It has all sorts of weird properties that you can have these closed time-like curves so that time is basically cyclical and repeats itself. on big enough time scales. But the other thing I get from from heirs of people like Gamov and like Herman and as well as, you know, conversations with people who are related to this Wiki family,

I get this a lot, Ashley. How dare you promote, you know, this notion that Vera discovered dark matter? That's just a plot. And it always comes. And they're probably listening and, you know, God bless them. But they say it's just a plot. And do you know where they say the plot originated, Ashley? No, I actually don't.

They call it a Vassar College plot. Oh, my. Okay. So Vassar College is somehow scheming the cabal that makes a vassar college. According to Zwicki's own, I think it's his daughter. And so do you get any, have you, have you, you know, encountered any of this before, kind of the pushback from Zwicki's family about the claims of Rubin as, you know, the founder of Dark Matter, et cetera.

Obviously, he had, he coined the term. Well, I have gotten some criticism. I don't, we'll see what happens when the book comes out. There might be more. But I've been writing about Vera since 2008. I wrote some pieces after she sadly passed away. And I think that was kind of when some of this criticism came out because there were so many stories about her work. And I hadn't heard about the.

cabal, that's very interesting. But I also think... I'm afraid you will. Yeah, I'm afraid that there will be more criticism. And I mean, I'll hear it. I don't know. I tried to do some research into the origin of actual dark matter. Where does that term come from?

And it was very interesting. Zewiki did play a part in it in his studies of Galaxy Cluster. And so I don't want to take that away from him. But there were people talking about dark matter or invisible things in the sky before he said that. And I talk a little bit about that in my book and kind of where the actual term dark matter comes from. And so that was actually surprising to me as well, knowing that this conversation was going on before he used the term related to the Galaxy. clusters that he was studying. So it's definitely, definitely another facet that makes Vera's story very interesting. So, and then, you know, I think that the mystery of dark matter, of course,

it was very perplexing, but maybe we can talk about how Vera first learned the technology, the tools, et cetera, which as I learned in my research for, for, on her was really, you know, kind of nurtured here at UC San Diego, not through telescopes that we have, but through the partnership and relationship she had with Jeff and Margaret Burbage, sadly, both now deceased. Margaret only passed away last year, actress after 100th birthday. And, you know, Margaret was, I remember her very distinctly different than Jeff. And in fact, she was kind of really, she didn't fit the mold.

I don't think she really would necessarily be the best role model. for like advocating, you know, special emphasis on women in astronomy because she famously rejected any award that had to do with her gender, sex, however you phrase it. And she, she was vehemently opposed to such things. On the other hand, she was also overlooked many times for very prestigious things, including the Nobel Prize. And she was the only astronomer on the famous BBFH paper. Yes. That could really, you know, untangle and get the data that eventually won Willie Fowler a Nobel Prize. Well, let's talk about the technology, the technique. that she is, and the collaboration with Ken Ford. So who is Ken Ford?

Ken Ford was an instrument builder. He worked at the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism in DC, or just outside of DC, and he had been there for a while. He had been working on this image tube spectrograph, which would really kind of magnify the light coming in from the telescope, so you could see much more red light and kind of get into those wavelengths. And so he was there and just before Vera moved there she was out in San Diego and working with the burbages and and they really showed her how a lot of the intricacies of using the telescope worked I think they you know they really provided the training ground for her to go to the telescope and use the film and learn how to change the film in and out and kind of do these different steps that

were necessary to make these observations. And then they also showed her how to take spectra of galaxies and stars in galaxies and be able to calculate the rotation of those stars around the galaxy, which then she really harnessed to be able to provide the evidence for dark matter. And so she had all those skills. She went back to D.C. She had been at Georgetown at the time, but she was having trouble juggling. family and observing and teaching and kind of all of her other responsibilities. And I think

she really wanted to focus on observing and that became clear working with the burbages. And so she went to the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism and asked for a job. And after a little bit of deliberation, they said, okay. And so on her first day, she came in and they had set up two offices for her, one either with Kent Ford or one with Bernard Burke, who was a radio astronomer. And Kent Ford told me, you know, she moved in with him and she never moved out. And so that started that kind of beautiful collaboration between them, where they would go to the telescopes. They would use his image tube spectrograph to take these really detailed observations of stars, first in Andromeda and then other galaxies and be able to calculate how quickly those stars were moving around the galaxy. And, you know, at that point, I think, you know, she, obviously she discovered these effects with Kent and their collaboration.

But I think, you know, learning about how the burbages had done the spectroscopy, they'd use the, you know, the telescopes in Texas and other places. And then here, but, you know, really refining the kind of tenuous spectroscopy and even coming close to discovering, you know, aspects of the rotation curve. but it really took Rubin, you know, pushing on this. And so what was that struggle like? What was the, you know, kind of key moment when this was, you know, convincing to everybody? Although, again, you know, not enough to convince the Nobel Academy as I chastised them for. But before it was too late, maybe they can, you know, rewrite their own kind of made up silly rules against posthumous prizes. Yeah. When did, you know, what was that like? Because I've heard it described by people that lost the Nobel Prize, et cetera, that one of the most important tools you have as a scientist, you know,

are PR tools and that you must actually agitate on your own behalf. It's not enough to let the science do the talking. Yeah. I think what happened was there were lots of different types of observations going on in this space. There was some theoretical work. And so everything came together in the 70s to really kind of coalesce. And the astronomy community had to wake up and say, oh my gosh, we do have this problem. Like this is clearly showing us that most of the matter that we're looking at is not most of the matter in the universe. And so in the in the 60s, there were some radio astronomy observations that suggested rotation curves were flat. Then in the 70s, you had Vera's paper on Andromeda come out.

And then early 70s, you had some of this theoretical work looking at how, galaxies would rotate over time and whether they would disintegrate or whether they would stay together. And the key in those simulations was you really needed this kind of halo of stuff to keep the galaxies together. And so I think Vera read that and so many people had said, you know, maybe flat rotation curves are only in galaxies like Andromeda or they're only in these other types of galaxies. And so what she did, which I think was really brilliant, is she went after making observations of stars rotating in galaxies in all types of galaxies. So it didn't matter what type, but she said, I'll look here and I'll look at this type of galaxy. And essentially by the 1980s, early 1980s, she had done a survey with Kent Ford and another astronomer. And all of the rotation curves were flat.

And so I think at that point, and there's this beautiful postcard that I found in her archives of Norbert Thernard, one of her colleagues writing to her and saying from a 1980 meeting, the theorists are finally beginning to believe that the rotation curves are flat. And so to me, that was a striking moment. I know there had been papers that had come out a little bit before that saying we have to address dark matter. We have to make sure that we start to have these conversations. It does exist. We need to start to figure out what it is. But I think by that push in the 1980s, early 1980s, where you have kind of all of that buy-in on those flat rotation curves,

essentially that all of the stars in a galaxy, the stars that are farther out, are moving at exactly the same speed as stars closer in, which isn't what you would expect, right? you would expect that the stars farther out would move much more slowly around the galaxy. And so I think seeing this in all of these different types of galaxies and also seeing it in visible wavelengths, right? You're seeing this in the type of light that we can see with our eyes.

I think that was really convincing for a lot of the astronomy community. And, you know, you'll have different people debate that. But I think that was a key moment for really kind of sharing. shifting the way people think about dark matter and really trying to address, okay, now that we discover that it exists, what is it? Right. Yeah, I love the story of how, you know, this postcard comes in and so forth. And then she happens to be working with her husband on a project to determine who was

the first astronomer to measure the, to detect the crab nebula and that it was a new star. what, you know, who was, and I'm like thinking, like, imagine like the Wright brothers down in North Carolina where you are, and they're at Kitty Hawk and their planner. And then Orville says, hmm, let me, let me see if I can think of a new way to have sugar-free cotton candy, you know, totally something completely different. It's just so hilarious that they work together. Yeah. We'll get back to their love affair and the day new month later on. Obviously, you know, we know that he's no longer with us and neither is she, sadly. And, but, but the impact on them, you know, and her as just, you know, because I like to think, you know, there's a famous quote

from Ginger Rogers, you know, that she had to do everything that Fred Astaire did. Now, I don't even know if you know who these people are. I only know because my mom is up at a certain age, and she was a huge fan of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. But nevertheless, the point being, you know, she always made this quip that, you know, I had to do everything Fred did, but backwards wearing high heels. Yeah. And I'm thinking, like, she was doing all this. And, oh, by the way, she had four kids. It's just unbelievable. Did you get to meet any of them? I did not get to meet them in person.

I did get to talk over the phone and correspond by email, which was lovely. And it was mainly Alan Rubin, who's at Princeton right now. He was kind of leading the correspondence there with some of the other brothers chiming in. Sadly, Judith died as well. Right. And so they, you know, they have. very, and a very interesting perspective. And it was good to hear the stories from their perspective as well because they were seeing

some of these things as children. And so, but it was just touching to see that as much as she, as much as Vera put into her science, she put that much passion into raising her children. And so it was almost as, I wonder where she found the energy for everything sometimes when I think about everything that she accomplished. It's just incredible. And I guess that does speak to having the right partner, which she talks about a lot, and just being able to juggle all of that and really prioritize when you focus on your family

and when you're focusing on your astronomy and kind of how to integrate all of that. And I think she did both of those extremely well. Did she pivot again after the 1980s or after kind of the, you know, the tie to turn scientifically, did she, or did she, you know, kind of remain continuing this, this very precise and very accurate measurements of dark matter? Yeah. She did a little bit kind of going back to the work about looking at large scale motion of galaxies and even kind of using some of her work to find out other ways to calculate the Hubble constant. So she did kind of follow where her curiosity led, but I think kind of later in the 1980s, she went back to looking at galaxies. I think she just really liked that type of research

and being able to go out and really challenge the technology and say, what's the farthest star that I can find from a center of a galaxy? And she just, that was something that she continued to do even into the 2000s, well into her 70s, she was still going to the telescope, still looking for these really far out stars to see, do they still hold up that trend? Do they move more quickly around the galaxy than we would expect? Or does their velocity drop off? And either way, that was going to tell you something fascinating about the galaxy and other galaxies, right? Like, she had this

question of, do galaxies dark matter, halos touch each other? Or did they explain? Do they extend far enough that kind of galaxies are connected in that way or does does the dark metal halo drop off? And so that's the question that she was exploring even in 2007 and 2008, some of the last times that she went to the telescope. And did she ever like connect the work of that she had done with cluster dynamics and the stuff just to bring full circle to where that's Wiki came in? In other words, he kind of postulated this from the virile theorem and the rotation of galaxies inside of a cluster. Did she ever make connections to the cluster community or not really? I think in just understanding the broader scope of how influential dark matter is, she did.

And then she did do some work, like I said, kind of working on large-scale structure. But I don't know that she ever did a lot of research into how different galaxies move. in a cluster and whether dark matters involved in that. I think she was more focused on individual galaxies when it came to that question. And throughout the 80s and the 90s, you know, she did have some sorts of, you know, kind of connection as a public speaker and an advocate for women and other minorities. Can you talk about that work as Vera as an advocate? Yeah.

I think that started relatively early on when she did see how much of a struggle she had to make to be successful. And I think she did recognize that she had a lot of people helping her. And she wanted to be one of those people who would help others. And so she did that in her own individual mentoring. But then she also did that in terms of she was data driven. She and a couple other women did some research in the early 1970s looking at, you know, pay rates for women astronomers and where they landed positions and how many PhDs were graduating in the 70s versus the 40s. And so she was always kind of tracking the progress and really speaking out when things weren't going well for women. And I can remember that she would always say, and even her sister said this, that at the National Academy's meetings, they just, everyone would kind of brace themselves when she stood up because she was going to talk about what are we doing about the numbers of women in the National Academies and how are we going to improve it?

And so I think she was always aware of the problem and slowly started to talk about it. But then in the 1980s, 1990s, she really started to push. I think maybe in part because her daughter faced adversity, even in her own journey to become an astronomer. And this was, you know, 1970s, 1980s. And so I think Beer was thinking, well, wait a minute, this shouldn't exist now. And it does. And what can we do about it?

How can we continue to voice this frustration and push for change? And what do you think, you know, were some of the, modes of doing so and advocating for change and actually measuring it because it's one thing to do it and people talk about it. But how do you, by what metrics do we judge the efficacy of outreach and basically accommodation of underrepresented groups? I think she was tracking a lot in terms of awards. How many awards were given to women are, is there equity in awards that are solely for women versus? open to everyone.

And, you know, again, counting numbers in the National Academies, counting numbers in the astronomy societies, looking at numbers of PhDs and really even in her own mentees, like, you know, how many women are there who are actually interested in doing this and how do we foster that? How do we continue to let them be successful? And I think she had something really interesting in her own book that I didn't quite get into in mind, but she said, you know, we really shouldn't be interviewing

the women who are successful. We should be interviewing the women who aren't successful and trying to figure out what is it about their story and their journey. What roadblock did they hit that ultimately force them out of the field? And I think that's something that we can still do. Yeah, absolutely. And as we kind of come to the end of her life, I was thinking we'd talk a little bit, about her relationship, her love affair. She got married at, what, 19 years old? They traveled together. She had challenges, you know, basically like Maria Gepard-Mayer, who is a professor here,

who she surely overlap with, you know, that they couldn't get position, you know, without their husbands as their kind of leaders, except here at San Diego. That was true of Hopkins and Argonne for them. And obviously, Margaret got her position, and Jeff came along as a spouse liar. We started off at the Center for Astrophysics and Face Sciences. Nevertheless, their love affair in all those cases was very, very prominent and pronounced. And I wonder, you know, can you speak a little bit about that? Maybe from the research that you did with Veer and her husband and what basically, you know,

culminated in their very long and very fruitful marriage. Yeah. I did have the opportunity to interview both of them together. in 2007. And it was meeting them both together. It was just, it was a stunning bit of time that I will remember and probably try to draw on for my own relationships. Just the way they interacted with each other, they finished each other's sentences. They were so respectful.

They were so loving. And they didn't have to say it. You just felt it. Right. And even after all the years that they had been together, it was incredible. And I think a lot of it was that they truly saw each other as equals. You know, Robert never thought that his career should deserve more attention than Vera's career. I mean, he made career choices to make sure that she had options that she could go and do her PhD.

So he chose to go to move to Maryland and work at one of the applied physics labs so that Vera could go on and do her PhD. so that Vera could go on and do her Ph.D. in Washington, D.C. And throughout his series of choices, he always thought about her. So even going to UC San Diego, they moved to San Diego because he had someone to work with. He, you know, he had a sabbatical that he was given. And he wanted to make sure that she had someone to work with, or, in the case of the Burb, which is a couple to work with to really drive her work. And so I think consciously he was always thinking about what's best for her first.

And then how does that fit in with what's best for me and how can we both succeed in making those decisions, which I think is something that's just ultimately something to really deeply consider. And then the last thing I want to ask about is your own personal journey. You were at MIT and they're a very prestigious science writing program there. Is that the night school? Is that the name of it? So they have two. They have the night, the night, I can't remember the exact name of it,

but that's for established career journals. And then the graduate program actually has a science writing program. And so that's the program that I did was the graduate program in science writing. And so we were asked to do a thesis. And the summer before I started at MIT, I worked at the Air and Space Museum. And I had been walking through. the Explore the Universe exhibit there, and I had noted that there weren't very many women in the exhibit.

You know, there was Caroline Herschel with her brother John, and then as I walked through then there was a placard of Vera, and I had never heard of her story. I had never heard of dark matter at that point. Oh, wow. And I just was instantly curious. And so I started asking my supervisor, David Devork, and a lot of questions, and he said, well, you know, I am working on Vera's oral history. would you like to help me?

And so that kind of set me down that path. And then that carried on at MIT where we did this thesis. And so that kind of became the outline for the book. And all of these years later, I won't say how many, it's finally come out. So that was kind of my discovery of her story was just walking around a museum and kind of taking note of the different exhibits and just really being drawn to her story and who she was and just how she had gotten into astronomy. Wonderful.

And the last question I had is just one of curiosity. I mentioned in my Encomium for your wonderful book, Vera's own book. How influential is that? And how is this book different from that in the sense that I always view that as kind of a book of essays rather than not autobiography. This is kind of a biography, a scientific biography of her, which is sort of needed. Yeah. Yeah. So I think this biography is a good compliment to that. I loved reading her collection of essays. There's so much in there. And you really feel her personality in there. You get a sense of the work that she's done. But to me, I was left kind of wanting to piece together her entire story, like from beginning to end, which you can do in a biography, which is lovely. So I really wanted to bring her to life to really show.

people who she was what were the set of principles that she lived by that made her so successful and really how can we take those and like I said apply them in our own life what can we take away from her story because it's not just about being an astronomer it's about being this beautiful human being who really tried to to foster people's gifts and really encourage them to be successful And so I think Yeah. This book builds on her on the story. Sorry.

Yeah, I was just going to say this book builds on that past work. Make every get-together chill. This Memorial Day, get up to an extra $1,000 off select top brand appliances like LG. Plus, get free delivery at the Home Depot. Tackle pool towels and camp laundry with a large capacity washer. And host in style with a fridge-serving craft ice. mini craft ice, cube dice, and crushed ice. Shop Applient Savings now through June 3rd at the Home Depot.

Offer valid May 14th through June 3rd, US only. Free delivery on appliance purchases of $998 or more. The C store online for details. So what's next for you, Ashley? What are you going to turn your considerable talent and intellectuals? I haven't quite decided yet. I came across a lot of incredible astronomers in doing the research for this book. So that might be some of what I write about next.

I'm not exactly sure yet, but I will keep you posted. And whatever I come up with, I will definitely let you know. And we can chat more about all of it. And you are always welcome on the end of the Impossible podcast. I want to remind folks, we've been talking with Ashley Jean Yeager, who is Associate News editor at Science News. She has written for Quanta, Science News, Nature, astronomy, sky and telescope, the scientist, other publications. Her book was called by Kirkus

Reviews, which is the most important, you know, pre-publication outlets. There is a compelling life of a top-notch scientist. And there is a blur by yours, truly, which is done with all sincerity about this wonderful book, Bright Galaxies, Dark Matter, and Beyond the Life of Astronomer, Vera Rubin. Ashley Yeager, thank you so much. It's been such a delight. I've been following you for years, and I hope we can continue to stay in touch. Yes, definitely. Thank you so much. I appreciate the opportunity. It's a pleasure. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Please support the show by rating, commenting, sharing, and leaving reviews. We appreciate hearing from you, and it really helps keep our universe expanding. Watch our YouTube channel at

Dr. Brian Keating. That's DR. Brian Keating, and join our premieres Tuesdays at 8 a.m. Pacific time. Follow Brian on Twitter and Medium and support us on Patreon at Dr. Brian Keating. For exclusive content, visit Brian Keating's website and sign up for his informative newsletter at Brian Keating.com. Into the Impossible is produced with the Arthur C. Clark Center for Human Imagination in the Division of Physical Sciences at the University of California, San Diego. Produced by Stuart Volko and Brian Keating. Ambition comes in all shapes and sizes. At First Citizens Bank, we roll with your goals because we're. We're built for what you're building.

Fit for your ambition. For Citizens Bank.