The doctor has just finished giving the young man a thorough physical examination.
"The best thing for you to do," the M.D. said, "is give up drinking and smoking, get to bed early and stay away from women."
"Doc, I don't deserve the best," said the patient. "What's second best?"
Gerard Henri de VaucouleursBorn 25 Apr 1918; died 7 Oct 1995 at age 77.French-born U.S. astronomer whose pioneering studies of distant galaxies contributed to knowledge of the age and large-scale structure of the universe. He produced three Reference Catalogues of bright galaxies (1964, 1976, 1991). Each was a 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. Using data in the Reference Catalogues, he was able to develop new distance indicators and refine others. His unique philosophy on distance matters was "spreading the risks," that is, applying as many different and independent techniques as possible to check for scale and zero-point errors. |
