Sandra M. Faber
Resources:
The Kavli Symposia
"Emerging Principles of Galaxy Formation"
Until recently, the field of galaxy formation resembled that of stellar evolution after the discovery of the main sequence (in 1911) but before the discovery of nuclear energy generation (in the 1930's). In both cases, scaling laws were known, but there was not yet any theory for their origin. Now, new data on galaxies are revealing not only new scaling laws but finally (thanks to lookback studies) a glimmer at last of understanding. Interestingly, mass seems to be the leading variable that determines the properties of both stars and galaxies, but the physical reasons are entirely different.
