An Historical View: The Discovery of Voids in the Galaxy Distribution
  Voids in the large scale distribution of galaxies were first recognized and
discussed as an astrophysical phenomenon in two papers published in 1978. We
published the first (Gregory and Thompson 1978) and Joeveer, Einasto and Tago
(1978) published the second. The discovery of voids altered the accepted view
of the large scale structure of the universe. In the old picture, the universe
was filled with field galaxies, and occasional density enhancements could be
found at the locations of rich galaxy clusters or superclusters. In the new
picture, voids are interspersed between complex filamentary supercluster
structure that forms the so-called cosmic web. The key observational
prerequisite for the discovery of voids was a wide-angle redshift survey
displayed as a cone diagram that extended far enough in distance to show a fair
sample of the universe (i.e., well beyond the Local Supercluster). The initial
impact of the 1978 discovery of voids was stunted for several years by
theoretical cosmologists in the West who were not quite sure how filaments and
voids could emerge from what otherwise appeared to be a homogeneous universe.
After it became clear several years later that theoretical models of structure
formation could explain the phenomenon, the new void and supercluster paradigm
became widely accepted.
