Shapley, Harlow (1885-1972)

Born in Nashville, MO, he studied with FREDERICK SEARES and at Princeton with HENRY NORRIS RUSSELL, where he took over the analysis of Russell's observations of the light curves of 90 eclipsing binary stars (ten times the number known up to then). In this work he established that Cepheid variable stars, whose spectral lines mimic the spectroscopic binary stars, are in reality pulsating stars. He ...