George Hale

(1868 - 1938 AD)

American astronomer and master fundraiser who, with Noyes and Millikan, was one of the founding fathers of Caltech. He talked streetcar magnate Charles Yerkes into financing Yerkes Observatory and its 40" Clark refractor in Williams Bay, Wisconsin. In 1908, he built a 60" telescope on Mount Wilson with financing from the Carnegie Institute. A 100" telescope was placed on Mount Wilson in 1917 with money from Los Angeles hardware tycoon John Hooker.

Hale's greatest project, however, was construction of the 200" telescope on Mount Palomar which, unfortunately, he did not see completed before his death. The telescope was names the Hale telescope in his honor. Hale also detected strong magnetic field in sunspots in 1908 by observing Zeeman splitting of spectral lines. He invented the spectroheliograph, which he used to photograph the Sun in the line of Ca. He also built an elaborate solar observatory in his back yard.

Hale suffered from serious psychological problems. He suffered from chronic headaches, insomnia, and frequent episodes of insanity. He had an imaginary elf who acted as his advisor. He used to take time off to spend a few months at a sanatorium in Maine. These problems forced him to resign as director of Mount Wilson (Preston 1987).

**The preceding information is provided by the Eric Weisstein's World of Scientific Biogra.**