# Talk:Vera Rubin

This article has her middle name, Cooper, in parentheses. Was that her maiden name? If so, the article should say so. In any case, the article should explain why "Cooper" is in parentheses.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by MiguelMunoz (talk • contribs) 19:03, 27 November 2008 (UTC) 
ADDRESSED Ybidzian (talk) 18:34, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

This article is really disorganized, and is missing information on the heart of the subject: the work she did that made her notable. There is no shortage of material in the references and links. RockMagnetist (talk) 16:48, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
ADDRESSED Ybidzian (talk) 18:34, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Please do not change the word "enrol".  Enrolled, enrolling, etc use a double "l".  Enrol uses one "l" only, as does the word "enrolment".  Thank you. 

enrol
Pronunciation: /ɪnˈrəʊl, ɛn-/
translate enrol | into French | into German | into Italian | into Spanish
Definition of enrol
verb (enrols, enrolling, enrolled)
1 [no object] officially register as a member of an institution or a student on a course:
he enrolled in drama school
[with object]:
all entrants will be enrolled on new-style courses
[with object] recruit (someone) to perform a service:
a campaign to enrol more foster carers
archaic write the name of (someone) on a list or register:
our Seamen and their numbers were carefully enrolled
2 [with object] Law, historical enter (a deed or other document) among the rolls of a court of justice:
the endowment of religious houses cannot be measured simply by the licences enrolled in chancery
Derivatives
enrollee
Pronunciation: /-ˈliː/
noun
enroller
noun
Origin:
late Middle English (formerly also as inroll): from Old French enroller, from en- 'in' + rolle 'a roll' (names being originally written on a roll of parchment)
Spelling rule
Double the l when adding endings which begin with a vowel to words which end in a vowel plus l (as in travel): (enrols, enrolling, enrolled).
enrol in other Oxford dictionaries
Definition of enrol in the US English dictionary  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ybidzian (talk • contribs) 12:25, 24 March 2013

Disagree It is enroll in the US, and enroll is an acceptable secondary spelling in the UK. According to Webster's, enroll is the correct spelling.  Additionally, you will notice that Vera is American and not British nor Australian. Wikipedia policy is to use American spelling for for American subjects. See Wikipedia:Manual of style#National varieties of English, summarized in Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive L#British/American Spellings.
That you would spend so much effort guarding this article from such a trivial change and reverting multiple attempts to effect the change over a long time concerns me. This is apparently due to a misconception you expressed on my talk page, that this article was, in your words: "my article on Vera Rubin". There is no such of a concept as my article in Wikipedia. Please refer to Wikipedia:Ownership of articles. If that isn't perfectly clear you should probably go on to study WP:DBF. I'm not criticizing you but rather letting you know about this, since you apparently didn't re-visit my talk page to see my reply to your post.Trilobitealive (talk) 13:40, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Trilobitealive (talk) 13:40, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

It is not accurate to say astronomers did not study or pursue galaxy clusters until "two decades" later.  For example, Zwicky first discovered dark matter by studying the Coma cluster, and spent a significant amount of time over his career studying clusters.   This was in the 1930s.  Abell's catalog of galaxy cluster appeared in the 1950s.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Esheldon (talk • contribs) 14:48, 9 July 2016 (UTC) 

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Please see the comment "Alternative MOND (Modified Newtonian Dynamics) models for galaxy rotation curves have been excluded."
This is comment is inserted with very poor flow, and without reference. Moreover the MOND article does not say that it has been excluded, but instead only lists some challenges.  For example that MOND is not a complete explanation has been answered by Milgrom ad nauseum.
I have not been following MOND for a while, but I have not heard of any knock-out blow either.
In other words, the comment is unreferenced, sounds political and if some hard reference cannot be brought to back it up, it ought to be removed or reworded in a more neutral voice and for historical context consistent with the next lines in the paragraph.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by DrKN1 (talk • contribs) 00:33, 28 December 2016 (UTC) 

I concur with the concern, and note that it is a general problem of the article—trying to make the case for the importance of the title subject, instead of reporting how important others think she is. (She is a member of the National Academy for goodness sake. She does not need WP editor elaborations on her accomplishments and ability, just statement of the facts.)
In this regard, the Sarah Scoles popular science piece in the otherwise estimable Astronomy should be recognized for what it is—a partisan argument, rather than good history of science. Is should not serve as a source to determine the importance of Dr Rubin's accomplishments, or place in the history of her science. Cheers.  Leprof 7272 (talk) 22:04, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

…it is very much in need of a look by two editors, one a biographer, aware of biographical standards, the second an astronomer, who understands the standard for assigning astrophysical and astronomical "firsts". This is said—because, despite today's work to correct the Rubin-Ford effect content (to be consistent with that separate article), and to make clear a more standard view of her role in the discovery of dark matter, the article still is in need of both scientific and biographical corrections.
Note, the tags are placed as minimally as I can imagine needed, and I would like to see them removed soon—but not until an astronomy expert reviews the Career section, and a biographer, the whole article. (I am very proficient, generally, as a science editor, having taught university natural science to non-majors over the years; but I am not an astronomer, or historian of science.)
Otherwise, I will continue, via Checklinks, to try to improve the fundamentals of the article. Lets get the science right, and the biography sound, soon. Le Prof  Leprof 7272 (talk) 22:01, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

…may be a bit too much. The lede needs to summarise the article, and not introduce new material. Moreover, it needs to be the preponderance of opinion, and the "cosmic consciousness" bit certainly is not going to be uniformly stated/shared. Cheers. Leprof 7272 (talk) 19:30, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

This review is transcluded from Talk:Vera Rubin/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: Vanamonde93 (talk · contribs) 13:46, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

I'll review this one over the next couple of days. At first glance it looks fairly solid, I expect my comments to be minor. Regards, Vanamonde (talk) 13:46, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

@Vanamonde93: Thanks, I look forward to your comments! Keilana (talk) 17:11, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
@Keilana: I think that's all I have for now; nice work, I enjoyed reading it. Vanamonde (talk) 06:52, 5 September 2017 (UTC)


### Checklist
GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

Is it well written?
A. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct: 
All issues have been addressed
B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation: 
All issues fixed
Is it verifiable with no original research?
A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline: 
Formatting issue fixed
B. All in-line citations are from reliable sources, including those for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines: 
One questionable source removed
C. It contains no original research: 
All material appropriately cited.
D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism: 
Earwig's tool only flags the publication titles
Is it broad in its coverage?
A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic: 
Article is comprehensive.
B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style): 
No extraneous material
Is it neutral?
It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each: 
Minor wording issues have now been fixed
Is it stable?
It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute: 
Stable.
Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?
A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content: 
Image licensing checks out to the best of my abilities.
B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions: 
No issues
Overall:
Pass or Fail: 
Thanks to Megalibrarygirl, all my points have been addressed, so I'm now happy to pass this. Vanamonde (talk) 05:44, 24 October 2017 (UTC)


### Comments
Feel free to revert any of my copyediting if I unintentionally change the meaning.
"inspired by Maria Mitchell's professorship there" I find this phrase a bit strange; perhaps "...undergraduate degree at Vassar college: Rubin felt inspired by Maria Mitchell, who had been a professor there" which is clearer with respect to the timeline, and the fact that the inspiration derived from Mitchell, and not her employment.  Done
Vassar was still an all-women college then, was it not? Worth mentioning?  Done
You mention her husband in "education" but he isn't introduced by name until much later; maybe just say "her husband arthur rubin", and that way nothing has to change later.  Done
"deviations from Hubble flow" Afraid most laypeople, including myself, do not know what that means.  Done
"one of the first observations of deviations from Hubble flow in the motions of 109 galaxies" Juxtaposition of "one of the first" and "109" sounds strange. Maybe "while studying the motions of 109 galaxies, Rubin made one of the first observations of.." or something to that effect.   Done
"This data" I'm not sure whether we should use the older convention that "data" is the plural form, or the recent convention of treating it as singular.  Done
Rather unfortunate that Supergalactic coordinate system makes no mention of Rubin...  Done (added Rubin to the article)
"because women were not allowed in that area of the university." Yikes!
Should "Staff Member" be capitalized? Was it an official title?  Done
"she observed the rotation of galaxies for the first time" Was this her first observation of galactic rotation, or the first observation?
"tacit rule that women were not allowed" not allowed to what? Observe? Enter the building? Apply?  Done
"amplify starlight and view astronomical objects that were previously too dim to see." Isn't that pretty much any telescope, though? What's special about this one?  Done
link or explain "dark matter haloes."  Done
"perspective on the history of the work" what work?  Done
I'm not a fan of one sentence paragraphs. Could the NAS sentence be merged somewhere? It might even fit better in "legacy". Moved  Done
"pursue their dreams of investigating the universe" somewhat heavy journalistic voice, IMO (small rewrite)  Done
I'm not the biggest fan of either one-sentence sections, and I've developed a recent dislike of bulleted lists of awards; they make the page read too much like a resume. At the very least, can we merge "In popular culture" into the legacy, make "awards" a subsection of the same? Also, I won't insist on dealing with the list here, but possibly remove the honor already mentioned, and phrase it as "Rubin received many other awards..." etc etc.  Done
Some minor source issues: you have countries in the "location" for some source but not others, and I think it ought to be standardized; too often we give only non-US countries.
Not all the sources have an accessdate.  Done
Finally, I don't think the undergrad thesis should be here, especially as you have many refs for that already. removed  Done
Totally optional comment: may be nice to have an image of a galaxy in there somewhere; Andromeda, perhaps, with a comment about Rubin studying it.
Okay, hi, I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you, I promise I haven't forgotten about this! I have an exam in an hour and a half and once that's taken care of I will turn my attention to Dr. Rubin. Keilana (talk) 16:41, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
No worries. I thought it must be something along those lines, given that you weren't active. Good luck with the exam. Vanamonde (talk) 17:54, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

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'The following are a small selection of articles'. Or should it be .'The following is a small selection of articles' .  IMO, the following items 'are' a small selection of articles would be correct. But perhaps AE sees things diffeently. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:08, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

This article is very misleading about Vera Rubin's role in the history of dark matter.  For example, the second sentence of the article states
"She uncovered the discrepancy between the predicted and observed angular motion of galaxies by studying galactic rotation curves"
This is just flat wrong. Significant work had been done in this area with radio astronomy. When Vera Rubin published her paper, it was already known that the issue existed. In fact, her results, from optical astronomy, were not as high quality as radio astronomy because her galaxy rotation curves did not extend to as large radial values. The cited reference discusses this and does not in any way support the claim that Rubin "uncovered" the discrepancy. Consider this quote from her famous paper [Rubin, et al. 1978, ]:
"Roberts and his collaborators deserve credit for first calling attention to flat rotation curves. [...] These results take on added importance in conjunction with the suggestion of Einasto, Kaasik, and Saar (1974) and Ostriker, Peebles and Yahil (1974) that galaxies contain massive halos extending to large r." 
Her own words disprove she "uncovered" it.
Later in the Wikipedia article this sentence appears 
"Rubin's results were confirmed over subsequent decades,[1] and became the first persuasive results supporting the theory of dark matter, initially proposed by Fritz Zwicky in the 1930s"
Again, there was rather persuasive evidence before her work. This is very misleading.  Immediately after we have this sentence
"This data was confirmed by radio astronomers, the discovery of the cosmic microwave background, and images of gravitational lensing"
This is the wrong order of events. Radio astronomy results came well before her optical results. This is made clear in the source "A History of Dark Matter", 2016, by Gianfranco Bertone, Dan Hooper, which is cited.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by MasterFurgison (talk • contribs) 17:00, 1 December 2021 (UTC) 

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion:

Vera Rubin (1928-2016) John Glenn (1921-2016).jpg
You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 12:23, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

The intro currently claims:

"By identifying the galaxy rotation problem, her work provided evidence for the existence of dark matter."
Citing

de Swart, Jaco; Bertone, Gianfranco; van Dongen, Jeroen (2017). "How dark matter came to matter". Nature Astronomy. 1 (59): 0059. arXiv:1703.00013. Bibcode:2017NatAs...1E..59D. doi:10.1038/s41550-017-0059. S2CID 119092226.
However that source says:

"Still, Rubin and Ford drew no direct conclusions regarding the existence of any dark matter or extra mass on the basis of their measurements..."
Pretty much all of pop-sci citations here are not authoritative. 
Did Vera Rubin ever publish an article on dark matter? My guess is no: she was an experimentalist who presented facts, not a theorist. Johnjbarton (talk) 15:48, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

I understand what you are saying. Astronomy does not lend itself to experiments; she was an observer whose work established the existence of the phenomenon we currently call "dark matter". Perhaps the intro should be rewritten slightly.
She certainly wrote about it, seeming always to have maintained an open mind herself as to what that phenomenon is. See
Rubin, Vera C. (1 December 2006). "Seeing dark matter in the Andromeda galaxy". Physics Today. 59 (12). AIP Publishing: 8–9. doi:10.1063/1.2435662. ISSN 0031-9228.
Rubin, Vera C. (2004). "A brief history of dark matter". In Livio, M. (ed.). The Dark Universe: Matter, Energy and Gravity. Space Telescope Science Institute Symposium Series. Cambridge University Press. pp. 1–13. ISBN 978-1-139-44980-9.
In the first she says "Our study was influential in the later conclusion that most of the matter in the universe is dark." but also "A few brave, smart cosmologists work to modify Newton’s laws to account for the observations." In the second she outlines how that conclusion came to be, but also talks about work on alternatives to Newtonian gravitational theory. StarryGrandma (talk) 05:35, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
Excellent, thank you. I made a number of changes, please check. Johnjbarton (talk) 16:19, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
I think that puts her views in there nicely. StarryGrandma (talk) 22:21, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Respectfully, this article has been worked over by diverse hands and has suffered in clarity for that. It's a tribute to Dr. Rubin's notability, but one that has not necessarily served an understanding of her contributions.
My perspective here is the biographical one. I recognize that a number of arguments regarding credit and the scope of Dr. Rubin's discoveries have been active on this page. In my revisions I have done my best to not interrupt the balance of how this information is presented. This said, it is clear to me that this article suffers for its failure to tease apart the 'personal life' issues from Dr. Rubin's career facts, a challenge that exists in any biographical writing of women from this period. 
While it is notable that Dr. Rubin was three weeks post-partum during her infamous December 1950 presentation to the AAS, and that she raised four children while completing her doctoral studies and pursuing the first decade of her career as a scientist, and that she established female-use toilets at several of the observatories where she worked over her lifetime, these events are not appropriately, in a Wikipedia biography, described in the "career" section. Further work will need to be done to clarify the different areas of her biography.
The citations in this article are a mess. This is unsurprising for a figure as notable as Dr. Rubin, a woman whose contributions are still being assessed, and I don't believe any individual reviewer or editor is at fault here. It's hard to check whether a citation is "reuse" or needs its own entry when the reference sources bloat out beyond 50.
A final note: the non-award of a Nobel Prize to Dr. Rubin is increasingly gaining attention, my updates included several citations on this topic. Whether or not future reviewers believe Dr. Rubin merited a Nobel is no longer the point here. As of the 2020s, it's an active topic for debate.
Sicklemoon (talk) 19:57, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

On another note--I'm not sure why the information regarding Rubin's sister Ruth is included, but I was reluctant to prune without additional context--someone thought this information was notable enough to include. Without looking at the source and context, I chose to leave it in place. Sicklemoon (talk) 14:41, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

I am not a Wikipedia guru, but maybe someone else would like to add that the new Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory NERSC Supercomputer will be named in her honor.
https://www.nersc.gov/news-and-events/news/doe-announces-new-supercomputer-powered-by-dell-and-nvidia-to-speed-scientific-discovery

131.243.54.227 (talk) 14:24, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

Hello. According to the NERSC article, the new supercomputer will be named after Jennifer Doudna. However it will use pre-existing Nvidia GPUs which are named after Rubin – this naming is already covered under the article's Additional recognition heading. — LittleDwangs (talk) 14:47, 3 July 2025 (UTC)
Apologies.  You are 1000% correct, I realized after I hit send and was just trying to erase my mistake. 131.243.54.227 (talk) 16:27, 3 July 2025 (UTC)