Henry Norris Russell

person · earth

American astronomer who in 1913 plotted absolute magnitude against spectral class and produced, independently of Hertzsprung, the diagram that carries both their names. He appears twice in this Journey and not flatteringly the second time: his standing was such that the plot was initially called the Russell diagram, and it was his objection that led Cecilia Payne to disclaim her own hydrogen result in 1925 - a conclusion he reached himself by another route four years later and then credited. He is a useful reminder that authority in a field is a real force acting on what gets published, distinct from the evidence. Not a place.

A person is not a place. Drawing it on a map would assert something about the world that no stored fact supports.