Edwin Powel Hubble

There is no one person responsible for the “Big Bang theory”; in fact it came from a string

of different people and their discoveries. Thanks to the earlier discoveries by Alexander Freidman, Georges Lemeaitr and Vest Slipher , the scientist to put

the final dot and cross the last ”t” was Edwin Hubble. Even though he died in 1953 his last great award for his efforts was the Hubble telescope launched by NASA in 1990.

Edwin was born in Marshfield, Missouri in 1889. In his later teens he was 6 feet and some… Excelling in high jump, basketball and track. His grades were very good in almost everything except spelling. He loved fly-fishing and was an amateur boxer as well.

The "Hubble law", which predicted the expansion of universe, therefore the possibility of the Big Bang. Hubble explained that the red glint in the faint light wavelengths showed the powerful force moving at tremendous speeds and that the more distant the nebulae, the faster they moved from the earth. It was then that Hubble came up with the equation v = H₀D This forced Einstein to reexamine his own math, relatively speaking, on all that the Earth and space discoveries with which Einstein wrinkled the heavens and warped time (excerpt from Fred Brown)….

Even though he was born in the US Edwin was enamored with everything English. So much so that he adopted the same pronunciation and cadence of speech. He sounded like an Englishman. Edwin also became an inveterate pipe smoker and as to be expected he mostly smoked Dunhill pipes. He was always seen with his pipe in hand or dangling from his mouth. And at times a cigar would pass his lips…

Within the Hubble family Edwin was thought to have taken after his grandfather Martin, who also smoked a pipe and was a charming story teller. This characteristic became so part of the Edwin persona that people tell the story of his attempt to spar with the world’s heavyweight champion Jack Johnson and later with the French heavyweight George Charpentier. He obviously never lost but always came to a draw.

His father wanted him to become a lawyer but he had other ideas. Edwin wanted to become a Rhodes Scholar at Ox ford, England and study astronomy. He then won a scholarship to Chicago University, took all the subjects that delighted him plus those required for a Law degree. Which he never got.

In 1910 Edwin was chosen for the Rhodes scholarship. It took him to Oxford, England. He studied at Queens College until 1913. Just before he graduated his father passed away. Edwin was both saddened and liberated from his father’s expectations. He was then free to explore the heavens to his desire’s content.

Although he claimed to be in the Meuse-Argonne offensive, his war record is somewhat cloudy, subject to his fisherman story telling…

For Hubble the years post WWI were bright and full of great clarity in his work and personal life.

By 1930’s Edwin was married and living in California, in the San Gabriel Valley. It was a constant party scene with visiting movie stars and socialites.

And still at this time Hubble was always with his pipe, and his tobacco was specially ordered from the London (Dunhill) Pipe Shop of Los Angeles, which unfortunately does not exist anymore.

One of Hubble’s favorite tricks was to strike a wooden match, flip it into the air and catch it in his pipe and light the tobacco.

Hubble past away in 1953 from a brain clot, a little over his 65^th birthday. By then he had amassed a huge collection. What happened to it? No one knows…. Hubble was a public man but a private scientist. His wife burned all his papers and other important documents, even their letters, after her husband’s death.

Some of those Dunhill pipes would be pre-WWI and since they had no children the collection is more likely to have been lost.

Among his many awards was the Gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1940. He never won the NOBEL but because of his efforts NASA launched the telescope in his name, the Hubble Space Telescope, in 1990. Its all he imagined a telescope should be. Showing the birth of stars, black holes, collisions of galaxies, supernova explosions, which suggests the expansion of the universe is accelerating….

...til next time... smooth puffing everyone

Christina

Chat with Benningtons

Ok, you want to chat with us? No problem! If you are an old pro... and have a Skype account, just add our email: sancortez@hotmail and you are in business!

Now if you are new to this chat thing, click Here (it will take you to the skype page) to create a new account and download the skype interface (or app) and follow the prompts.

Once you have a brand new account, in your skype window click the "+" sign which is located at the bottom. It will open the "Add a skype Contact" window. Write sancortez@hotmail.com and click the "search" button. When our info appears click on it and click "add contact"You are ready to chat with us and anyone else that has skype, for free. Just drop us a line... We can text chat about any of our products and do video also.

Jim

Now What...? I already have a pipe....

Ok…., lets be specific

A smoking pipe that is specifically made to smoke tobacco typically consists of a chamber (the bowl) for the combustion of material followed by a short tube (the shank), ending in a mouthpiece (the bit). Pipes can range from the very simple machine-made briar pipe to highly prized handmade and artful implements created by renowned pipemakers, which are often very expensive collector's items. "Estate pipes" are previously owned pipes that are sold to new owners.

For those who are new to the hobby the idea is rather strange… But once the new piper starts to rub elbows with more practice pipe smokers, he or she will notice that many times that’s the way to go. Why? Because it’s also a collectors hobby… Pipe smokers swap stories they swap, trade, sell and some times barter services for a pipe.

And what would a seasoned pipe smoker be looking for in an “Estate Pipe”?

First of all if it has been thoroughly reamed, cleaned, sweetened and polished. Swapping or buying an estate pipe that looks like what ever is in residence in there could kill your pet hamster is not a great idea.

Even though clean, as a used pipe it still should have a “dime’s” thick wall of carbon. Which was created by all the tobacco it smoked.

Second, the obvious, what was smoked in there? No… not the wacky weed! What type of tobacco? English? Aromatic? And so on. If you are a staunch defender of the Aromatic tobacco you should buy a pipe that smoked Aromatic tobaccos… If you smoke English, or you wish to get an estate pipe to smoke English, your new/old pipe should have smoked English tobaccos. Think about it… If you smoke Aromatics in a pipe that puffed on English tobaccos, like: Latakia, Perique, etc, it is going to taste awful and the aroma is going to be something out of a grisly novel! That is why the smart pipe smoker has several pipes. Pipes for the Aromatic tobaccos, for the English and the non-Aromatics ( many times they have no casing, aromas, and the blend is mostly burleys).

Make sure it has a new bit, also called a stem. New bits are changed by the hand full; the best pipes will have rubber, also known as Vulcanite or something fancy like acrylic. Dunhill pipes for example, only uses Vulcanite (because of the use of their branding mark, the white dot). You don’t really want a bit with someone else’s teeth marks on it…Yuck… lol (laughing out loud) just making sure.

And lastly, who made it, what company…, pipe maker…., is it of briar or a different wood? And when was it made? You could have found a treasure!

Below is a short description of what you can expect to find as pipes and their stems: (Pulled from Wikipedia)

The bowls of tobacco pipes are commonly made of briar, meershaum, corncob or clay. Less common are cherry wood, olive wood, maple, mesquite, oak, and bogwood. Generally a dense-grained wood is ideal. Minerals such as catlinite and soapstone have also been used. Pipe bowls of all these materials are sometimes carved with a great deal of artistry.

Unusual, but still noteworthy pipe bowl materials include gourds, as in the famous Calabash pipe (lined with Meershaum), and pyrolytic graphite. Metal and glass are uncommon materials for tobacco pipes, but are common for pipes intended for other substances, such as… Naah…

The stem needs a long channel of constant position and diameter running through it, although filter pipes have varying diameters and can be successfully smoked even without filters or adapters. Because it is molded rather than carved, clay may make up the entire pipe or just the bowl, but most other materials have stems made separately and detachable. Stems and bits of tobacco pipes are usually made of moldable materials like vulcanite, Lucite, Bakelite, and soft plastic. Less common are stems made of reeds, bamboo, or hollowed out pieces of wood. Expensive pipes once had stems made of amber, though this is rare now.

So where do you go for used pipes? For starters, Benningtons, we buy and trade old pipes. As well as, new of course. If you find a pipe that you really like, we can look at it for you and tell you if there is anything that needs done to get it ship shape. Many times there are great finds out there. And if you have old pipes you don’t care for anymore we can take a look and see if we can do business….

Should The FDA Regulate Cigars

If the FDA controls premium cigars, the cigar

business will be quite different.

Did you kow that...

On April 26, 2010 the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) publicly announced its intent to regulate cigars through regulations that had previously applied only to cigarettes. The June 2009 the signing of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act granted the FDA unpredictable power to impose strict new controls on the making and marketing of tobacco products but did not initially appear to apply to cigars or pipe tobacco, only to cigarettes.

Well, in April of 2010 and again in December of 2010 and July of 2011, the FDA made it clear with detailed postings in the Federal Registrar that its intent is to apply the same standards for nicotine content, advertising materials and marketing to cigars. The FDA had begun work on rules to eliminate full color advertising, all forms of outdoor advertising and point of sale advertising in tobacco shops while requiring the prominent posting of graphic anti-smoking literature and posters within tobacco retail shops.

But The International Premium Cigar and Pipe Retailers Association, an industry trade organization and The Cigar Rights of America, a consumer grass roots organization, reacted by achieving the introduction of House bill H.R. 1639, titled the Traditional Cigar Manufacturing and Small Business Jobs Preservation Act. This important legislation aims “to exempt traditional large and premium cigars from regulation by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and from user fees assessed on tobacco products by the FDA.” Initially sponsored by Representative Bill Posey from Florida,

The bill has gained the support of 68 Representatives from 22 states since its introduction in April 15, 2011. On August 1, 2011, a companion bill under the same name was introduced in the Senate by Senator Bill Nelson of Florida. The Senate Bill (S. 1461) has gained the sponsorship of two additional Senators since its introduction.

So, the FDA, today, has to apply to take control of cigars and pipe tobacco and has not succeeded. Try as they might something always gets in the way...lol

Have agreat weekend...... Long ashes,

Jim & The European Cigar Journal