On that day, Edwin Hubble and Albert Einstein, some of the greatest scientific celebrities from all over the world at that time, gathered together to listen to a series of lectures. But it was this person and a lecture that made Einstein declare: "This is the most beautiful and satisfying creative explanation I have ever heard."
As we all know, on the eve of the rise of the Third Reich, Einstein left his native Germany for the United States. But few people know that George Lemaitre, a Belgian Catholic priest, was traveling with him, a man whom Einstein respected very much. George Lemaitre is a pious man, but he is also a great scientist, actually a cosmologist. He studied the universe, especially its origin. His research, beliefs and conclusions have greatly influenced the way we understand our existence today.
Born in Charleroi, Belgium in 1894, George was very interested in finding out how things around him worked. He started his civil engineering studies at Catholic University of Leuven, the largest French-speaking university in Belgium. He interrupted his studies during the First World War and served as an officer in the Belgian army. His performance was admirable. At the end of the war, he won the Belgian War Cross, which was a reward for his bravery on the battlefield. Then, he went back to university and got a degree in mathematics and philosophy.
Since George was a little boy, he believed in religion and understood the relationship between religion and science. He followed the example of his former teacher, Cardinal Desire Mercier, who held progressive beliefs in philosophy and cosmology. Therefore, he did not enter the academic life, but entered the ranks of priests. On September 23rd, 1923, Lema Trey was appointed as a priest by his spiritual mentor, Cardinal messier. In his spare time, < P > (now) Father Lema Trey continued his scientific research, especially the theory of general and special relativity. Cardinal messier recognized Lemma's talent and allowed him to study at the famous Harvard Observatory. At the same time, Lema Trey received a doctorate in physics from MIT. Lemaitre's extensive and diverse research enabled him to cross with other famous astronomers and cosmologists at that time, including George Hale (discoverer of solar vortex and magnetic sunspot) and Westeros River (discoverer of the Galaxy Redshift and Pluto), which had a great influence on his later discoveries.
It was at this time that Lemaistre put forward a profound theory, which still affects our study of the universe. In 1927, he published his article "A uniform universe with constant mass and increasing radius, explaining the radial velocity of extragalactic nebulae."
, he put forward and described his theory about the expansion of the universe. Guided by Einstein's theory of relativity, Lemaistre speculated that the space is expanding, so the distance between galaxies is also increasing. Later, Hubble proved the same truth, and even today, it is widely believed that Hubble put forward this idea. In addition, Lema Trey discovered what was later called "Hubble's Law", which is an expansion rate related to the distance of galaxies from the Earth. Lema? Tre also derived a formula now called Hubble constant. In both cases, he finished the work before Hubble published his works on these revolutionary ideas. Hubble's real contribution in this case is to provide the observation basis for Lemaitre's main theory, which is based on mathematics.
Unfortunately for Lema Trey, his Nobel Prize thesis (although astronomers could not win the Nobel Prize for their work in astronomy at that time, because it was not regarded as a part of physics) had little impact on the scientific community, because it was published in a magazine that was rarely read outside Belgium. But one person in particular has read it, Albert Einstein. In 1927, Lema Trey and Einstein met for the first time at the famous 5th Solvay Conference in Brussels. He was impressed by Lema Trey's discovery, but he didn't waver. He told him, "Your calculation is correct, but your physics is disgusting." Essentially, Einstein thought that Lema Trey's mathematics was correct, but it didn't seem to show.
In 1931, in order to make his theory more widely read, Lema Trey sent his article to Sir Arthur Eddington, a British astrophysicist. He wanted everyone to be exposed to scientific theory. He is the man who announced and helped explain Einstein's theory of relativity to the English-speaking world when he was a German scientist. )
Eddington translated Lema Trey's works and published them in the Monthly of the Royal Astronomical Society, a peer-reviewed magazine that still exists today. After the publication of this book, skeptics and Lema Trey himself clearly realized that something was missing in this theory. The universe is expanding, but when and how did the expansion begin? "
this makes Lema? Tre is puzzled, but like a good scientist, he has been questioning. Only a few months later, under the guidance of Eddington's doomsday theory entitled "The End of the World from the Perspective of Mathematical Physics" published in 1931, Lema Trey put forward another groundbreaking theory. In a letter to Nature on May 9, 1931 (still published today, since 1869), Lema? Tre wrote:
If the world starts from a quantum, then the concepts of space and time are completely meaningless at the beginning; Only when the original quantum is divided into a sufficient number of quanta do they begin to have a reasonable meaning. If this suggestion is correct, then the beginning of the world happened before the beginning of time and space.
this word will be Lema in 195? One of tre's prose collections was created as a "primitive atom", where he will begin to be called "there is no yesterday now" or be misinterpreted as a more common word, which is called "a day without yesterday". This is the basis of the so-called "Big Bang Theory". After several other scientists supplemented LeMaTe's theory, many skeptics of "KDSP" and "KDSP" disagreed with this origin theory. They believe that Lema Trey's religious background has cast a shadow over his scientific process. In essence, according to critics, what Lema Trey claimed was that something created the "primitive atom" in some way, thus leaving the possibility for greater existence. In fact, Pope Pius XII announced in 1952 that the Big Bang theory affirmed the concept of "transcendental creator" and was therefore consistent with Catholic dogma.
as for Lema? Tre, who did not appreciate the Pope's comments, had a heated debate with the Pope on this issue, trying to get the Pope to stop using his works as arguments for creationism, preferring whether his works were independent or not, and not letting religious thoughts blind people's views on it. (Ironically, considering the state of scientific knowledge at that time, Lema? Tre's mathematics and theory are usually sound. In many cases, scientists with different opinions allow their own prejudices to influence their opinions on Lema? Tre's views on work. )
despite the conflict, in 1933, at the above-mentioned meeting held in Pasadena, California, Lema? Tre introduced all these theories in detail to the awe-inspiring audience. When he finished Einstein's announcement of his famous words, Duncan Aikman, the writer of * * *, was covering the meeting. In the same article, Aikman went on to say:
"There is no conflict between religion and science, and Lemaitre told the audience again and again in this country ... His views are interesting and important, not because he is a Catholic priest, not because he is one of the most outstanding mathematical physicists of our time, but because he is both.
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