September 14, 2016 Wednesday
Bedtime Story
How the Priest made Einstein reconsider
In 1923, the year Lemaitre became priest, he went to the University of Cambridge in England as a graduate student.
The great Arthur Eddington was his mentor who introduced Lemaitre to to the whole new world of stars, galaxies and numerical analysis.
Then in 1924, Lemaitre again had the good fortune of travelling to the United States and working under Harlow Shapley at the Harvard College Observatory.
This was where Lemaitre scored over Alexander Friedmann who was unlucky to have stayed bonded to USSR and having died very young in 1925 soon after he had invented the Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) metric.
FLRW metric is an exact solution of Einstein's field equations.
Lemaitre was exposed to the western world; while Friedmann only wrote to Einstein, de Sitter and others, Lemaitre was meeting all the top physicist and cosmologists in person.
After these 2 trips to England and America, at the age of 31 Lemaitre returned to Belgium back to his alma mater the Catholic University of Leuven.
Two years later, in 1927 at the age of 33, he published his first seminal paper titled:
"A homogeneous universe of constant mass and growing radius accounting for the radial velocity of extragalactic nebulae."
Like Friedmann's, it was again a mathematical paper that on solving Einstein's field equations derived an expanding universe.
But he got gone one step further.
In it, he had also determined the rate of expansion which is now known as the Hubble constant.
Luckily for him, Eddington translated this paper into English in 1930 and added a comment:
"brilliant solution to the outstanding problem of cosmology."
Einstein, a lover of static universe, found it atrocious.
Lemaitre at the Solvay Conference of 1927 reminded Einstein of Alexander Friedmann who had reached similar conclusions on solving the fields equation way back in 1922.
Lemaitre was not dismayed by Einstein's rebuke and remained relentless.
He even went one step further.
In 1931, his Annus Mirabilis, at the age of 37 he published in the journal Nature the idea of universe having started from some initial point which he called the "Primeval Atom".
In 1935 he travelled to Princeton and then with Einstein (who had fled Nazi Germany) attended and spoke at various conferences in California.
This time he had the backing of Edwin Hubble who had documented the red shift of the distant receding galaxies.
Einstein who had always found the idea of expanding universe appalling on hearing out Lemaitre's exposition stood up, applauded and purportedly said:
"This is the most beautiful and satisfactory explanation of creation to which I have ever listened."
This, mon ami, is what scientists are and this is how they behave.
No matter how cherished their beliefs are, once the experimental evidence mounts against it, they dutifully drop it.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.in/
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
The American, the Belgian and the Soviet...gradually they provided convincing argument and evidence which made Einstein accept the expanding universe
Bedtime Story
How the Priest made Einstein reconsider
In 1923, the year Lemaitre became priest, he went to the University of Cambridge in England as a graduate student.
The great Arthur Eddington was his mentor who introduced Lemaitre to to the whole new world of stars, galaxies and numerical analysis.
Then in 1924, Lemaitre again had the good fortune of travelling to the United States and working under Harlow Shapley at the Harvard College Observatory.
This was where Lemaitre scored over Alexander Friedmann who was unlucky to have stayed bonded to USSR and having died very young in 1925 soon after he had invented the Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) metric.
FLRW metric is an exact solution of Einstein's field equations.
Lemaitre was exposed to the western world; while Friedmann only wrote to Einstein, de Sitter and others, Lemaitre was meeting all the top physicist and cosmologists in person.
After these 2 trips to England and America, at the age of 31 Lemaitre returned to Belgium back to his alma mater the Catholic University of Leuven.
Two years later, in 1927 at the age of 33, he published his first seminal paper titled:
"A homogeneous universe of constant mass and growing radius accounting for the radial velocity of extragalactic nebulae."
Like Friedmann's, it was again a mathematical paper that on solving Einstein's field equations derived an expanding universe.
But he got gone one step further.
In it, he had also determined the rate of expansion which is now known as the Hubble constant.
Luckily for him, Eddington translated this paper into English in 1930 and added a comment:
"brilliant solution to the outstanding problem of cosmology."
Einstein, a lover of static universe, found it atrocious.
Lemaitre at the Solvay Conference of 1927 reminded Einstein of Alexander Friedmann who had reached similar conclusions on solving the fields equation way back in 1922.
Lemaitre was not dismayed by Einstein's rebuke and remained relentless.
He even went one step further.
In 1931, his Annus Mirabilis, at the age of 37 he published in the journal Nature the idea of universe having started from some initial point which he called the "Primeval Atom".
In 1935 he travelled to Princeton and then with Einstein (who had fled Nazi Germany) attended and spoke at various conferences in California.
This time he had the backing of Edwin Hubble who had documented the red shift of the distant receding galaxies.
Einstein who had always found the idea of expanding universe appalling on hearing out Lemaitre's exposition stood up, applauded and purportedly said:
"This is the most beautiful and satisfactory explanation of creation to which I have ever listened."
This, mon ami, is what scientists are and this is how they behave.
No matter how cherished their beliefs are, once the experimental evidence mounts against it, they dutifully drop it.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.in/
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
The American, the Belgian and the Soviet...gradually they provided convincing argument and evidence which made Einstein accept the expanding universe
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