De Vaucouleurs went on to
invent an entirely new cosmic distance system in competition
with Sandage's. He added a whole raft of novel distance indicators,
like the diameters of so-called ring galaxies, the brightest
star clusters, and something called the luminosity index, to
supplement and supplant the classic tried-and-true methods
that went back to Hubble and Shapley. Some of them he used
to determine distances, others he used to check his distance
indicators. The whole scheme made Sandage and Tammann's look
simple. His diagram of it was designed to look like the Eiffel
Tower: several ladders of measurements rising to a pinnacle
of truth, intricately cross braced by cross-checks, a
posteriori
comparisons, calibrations, linearity checks.
In one respect his method was simple: Trusting no intuition
or principle above any other, de Vaucouleurs used every way
he could think of-no matter how half-cocked-to measure distances
and then averaged all the results. Wily old nature wouldn't
be able to hide from such a wide assault. He called it "spreading
the risks."
The inevitable result of this
new campaign, undertaken mostly by reanalyzing the vast amounts
of data already published, was that de Vaucouleurs's Hubble
constant rose even higher-to around 100. Which meant his
version of the universe was half as big and half as old as
Sandage and Tammann's.
- Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos,
by Dennis Overbye,
HarperPerennial, 1992, pp. 268-9
(quoted with permission of the publisher)
Gérard Henri de Vaucouleurs was born
on April 25, 1918, in Paris, France. His interest in astronomy
was evident early in his life. As a boy of ten he observed
the Moon from the balcony of his family's apartment using a
marine telescope borrowed from a friend. A few years later,
his mother purchased a telescope for him. He received his undergraduate
degree in 1939 and his graduate degree in 1949 from the University
of Paris, working in the Sorbonne Physics Research Laboratory
and the Institut d'Astrophysique. It was in Paris that he met
his first wife, Antoinette Pietra, who also became a celebrated
astronomer and who worked closely with de Vaucouleurs until
her untimely death in 1987. His dissertation involved research
on molecular (Rayleigh) scattering of light in gases and liquids.
De Vaucouleurs' real passion, however, was astronomy,
which occupied most of his research career. After getting his
degree, the couple went to England for a while, where Gérard
ran a weekly program on the BBC and worked at Mill Hill Observatory
of the University of London. They then moved to Australia where
they were attached to the Mt. Stromlo Observatory. De Vaucouleurs
received a Doctor of Science degree from the Australian National
University in 1957, for research in molecular physics, optics,
photography, astronomy, and astrophysics. He came to the United
States in 1957, working at both Lowell and Harvard College
observatories before joining the faculty of the University
of Texas at Austin in 1960. He soon became acclimated to Texas,
and was typically seen on campus wearing a large Texas-style
Stetson hat. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1962.
After Antoinette's death, in 1988 he married his second wife,
the former Elysabeth Bardavid of Paris, whom he had known for
many years and who survives him.
Gérard de Vaucouleurs was an observer
who was meticulous with the data he collected and had an extraordinary
knowledge of galaxies, recognizing hundreds of them by sight.
During his 50-year career, he authored or co-authored more
than 360 research and technical papers, 20 books, and 100 popular
articles, a phenomenal production. His research was characterized
by a respect-even reverence-for the data and a reluctance to
produce grand theories. Initially, he did considerable research
on photography as a tool to study galaxies. Among his many
contributions, he was the first person to calculate the cosmic
background light due to galaxies (1949). He established (1953-1956)
the reality of the Local Supercluster (or Local Supergalaxy)
and the effect of its mass concentration on the motion of nearby
galaxies (1958-1964). He developed standard parameters to describe
the luminosity distributions and angular diameters of galaxies.
He discovered the "r1/4 law" of the luminosity
distribution of elliptical galaxies (1948) and was the first
to use the general technique of photometric decomposition of
spirals into bulge and disk components. He discovered (1953-1956)
the spiral structure and (with Frank J. Kerr) the rotation
of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, the nearest external
galaxies, systems once thought to be "irregular" galaxies
lacking rotational symmetry. With Allan Sandage, he developed
(1956-1959) a personal revision of Hubble's original galaxy
classification system, a three-dimensional scheme whose main
dimension he showed to correlate well with measured global
parameters such as bulge-to-disk ratio, integrated colors,
hydrogen mass-to-light ratios, and mean surface brightness.
With Antoinette de Vaucouleurs, he made the first quantitative
analysis (1957) of the composite radiation of a stellar system
(the bar of the Large Magellanic Cloud). He also discovered
secondary or "nuclear bars" in barred galaxies (1974)
and recognized the importance of rings and especially "pseudo-rings" in
spiral galaxy morphology. He was the first to propose that
the Milky Way is a barred spiral with a broken inner pseudo-ring
(1963-1969), and (with William D. Pence) he derived the first
quantitative 2D model of the Milky Way (1978-79). His work
on the Local Supercluster and the Milky Way bar was so controversial
that it was more than two decades before either idea became
generally accepted.
De Vaucouleurs is probably best known for his
extensive work on the cosmic distance scale and for his production
of three Reference Catalogues of bright galaxies in
1964, 1976, and 1991. The hallmark of the reference catalogues
was homogenization of data from widely different sources, so
that the catalogues would not be merely finding lists or data
collection lists, but astrophysically useful databases. Much
of the data on morphology, magnitudes, colors, and radial velocities
that went into these catalogues was obtained by Gérard
himself and his co-workers over many years. (Students and co-workers
became well-familiar with his "Galaxymeter" designed
for obtaining photometry, spectra, direct photography, and
interferometry of galaxies at McDonald Observatory.) Using
data in the Reference Catalogues, Gérard was
able to develop new distance indicators and refine many others
that were already known. He had a unique philosophy on distance
matters of "spreading the risks," that is, not putting
all weight on a few distance indicators but applying as many
different and independent techniques as possible to check for
scale and zero-point errors. He favored a large value of the "Hubble
constant" and a short time scale for the cosmological
expansion. He wrote many detailed publications highlighting
his methods and in particular distinguishing them from those
of other leading distance scale workers at the time.
De Vaucouleurs was the recipient of many awards
and honors during his career. He received the Herschel Medal
from the Royal Astronomical Society in 1980 and an Ashbel Smith
Professorship from the University of Texas in 1980-82, was
made a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 1986,
and received the Henry Norris Russell Prize of the American
Astronomical Society in 1988.
A few years after arriving at Texas, de Vaucouleurs
helped bring to Austin material from the Péridier Observatory
at Le Houga, France, where he had worked for a time. The owner,
an advanced amateur astronomer, had an extensive library and
several telescopes, and de Vaucouleurs was instrumental in
convincing the University to purchase these items. The library
became the nucleus of the Astronomy Department library, and
one of the telescopes is still in service at the Bee Cave Observatory
west of Austin, where it is used for teaching and to serve
the general public.
De Vaucouleurs' commitment to astronomy was
total, and he expected no less from his students. One student
recalls what happened when he attended an Astronomy Department
picnic and, while playing volleyball, broke his index finger,
which put him in a cast for several weeks. When de Vaucouleurs
learned of this, he became rather upset, referring to the volleyball
game as a "frivolous activity" that had interfered
with more important astronomical work. However, Antoinette
reminded him that it was, after all, the "astronomy picnic," and
so the matter was dropped. Despite this stern exterior, de
Vaucouleurs cared very much for his students. Many years after
graduation, this same student fell during an observing run
at Mt. Stromlo Observatory, in Australia, and broke bones in
both legs. De Vaucouleurs found out about the accident and
attempted to contact his former student by trans-Pacific telephone,
but the nurses, apparently unable to understand his accent,
would not let the call go through. This student always treasured
the memory of de Vaucouleurs' concern for his welfare as it
was revealed by this incident.
De Vaucouleurs' wit was dry and reserved. One
student of his, after many years, managed to overcome his natural
reticence and call his former teacher by his first name. De
Vaucouleurs' comment was that it was about time! He loved good
food, and once, while on sabbatical from the University of
Texas, in Edinburgh, Scotland, after having been taken to lunch
at one of the better restaurants, was asked if he had dined
well. He replied that he had not dined since he left France!
And upon hearing about the colossal number of papers (700)
authored by another distinguished astronomer, he turned to
Antoinette and asked how many papers he had written. When the
answer came back (several hundred by then), he replied, "We
must work harder!"
In 1988, a group of Gérard's friends
and colleagues prepared a book about his work that was presented
to him in Paris on the occasion of his 70th birthday. This
book, entitled Gérard and Antoinette de Vaucouleurs:
A Life for Astronomy (edited by Massimo Capaccioli and
Harold G. Corwin, Jr.), provides a much deeper picture of his
contributions than we can give here. In addition to Gérard's
extragalactic work, the book describes his considerable research
on the planet Mars, which was a major effort of his until the
mid-1970s.
Gérard de Vaucouleurs life-long commitment
to astronomy was an inspiration to all who knew him. He knew
more about galaxies than anyone who ever lived. He will be
long remembered for his contributions and greatly missed by
all who follow in his footsteps.
<signed>
Larry R. Faulkner, President
The University of Texas at Austin
<signed>
John R. Durbin, Secretary
The General Faculty
This Memorial Resolution was prepared by a special
committee consisting of Professors Frank Bash (chair), William
Jefferys, and James Douglas.
