1904年Bruce奖：William Huggins
August 6th, 20071904年的Bruce奖获奖者是 William Huggins
Huggins是英国富有的天文”爱好者”中的一员，但是他对19世纪的科学发展却做出了重要的贡献。在30岁的时候，他卖掉了家产在离London几英里之外的Tulse Hill建立了一座私人天文台。继1859年，Kirchhoff和Bensen发现光谱中的吸收和发射线可以解释物质构成之后，Huggins也把各种化学物品带进天文台以比较它们和观测到的恒星的光谱。最初是用目视，后来又用照像的方法研究了恒星，星云和彗星的光谱。他首先揭示了，有些星云，像M42猎户大星云的光谱中只有发射线，所以一定是气体，而其他的一些，像M31仙女大星云，却含有恒星光谱的特征。他也是第一个尝试测量恒星视向速度的人。在1875年之后，他一直和他天才的妻子，Margaret Lindsay Murray一起进行观测。
I soon became a little dissatisfied with the routine character of ordinary astronomical work, and in a vague way sought about in my mind for the possibility of research upon the heavens in a new direction or by new methods.
It was just about this time … that the news reached me of Kirchhoff’s great discovery of the true nature and the chemical constitution of the sun from his interpretation of the Fraunhofer lines.
This news was to me like the coming upon a spring of water in a dry and thirsty land. Here at last presented itself the very order of work for which in an indefinite way I was looking….
—Huggins (1897)
这是Huggins自己的一段话，从这里面能充分看出他的雄心壮志…..
…The riddle of the nebulae was solved. The answer, which had come to us in the light itself, read: Not an aggregation of stars, but a luminous gas.
–Huggins (1897)
“The view in the spectroscope was strange, and up to that time unprecedented.”
–Huggins (1897)
It would be scarcely possible, even with greater space, to convey to the reader any true conception of the difficulties which presented themselves in this work….
[T]his new method of research [transcends] the wildest dreams of an earlier time….
[P]ure astronomers … were then unfamiliar with Spectrum Analysis, which lay completely outside the routine work of an observatory….
They heard my words, but for a time were very slow to avail themselves of this new power of research.
—Huggins (1897)
