Yep that’s not how science is done, but the real story is more interesting I think. It wasn’t Einstein so much as Hubble and Lemaître, but he did acknowledge the error that caused him to miss the expanding universe in his equations.
"This circumstance of an expanding universe is irritating "
– Albert Einstein, 1929.
In every direction in the sky, there is a background fizz of light. It is all that remains of the most intense flare of energy ever emitted. To explain it, we must look back to 1929. At that time Edwin Hubble, an astronomer at Caltech, proved that the universe was much larger than anyone had expected and expanding in all directions. From this discovery, two competing explanations developed. The Steady State Theory and the Big Bang. The first allows the universe to create new matter as it expands. Matter just appears from some hidden and rather ghostly source. That permits the universe to look more or less the same as it does today, at least as far as galaxies go. The second treats the universe as a closed system. One that begins with a vast and concentrated supply of energy, which decays into lesser forms. Spreading out as it does. The Big Bang universe is an expanding bubble of space-time, with a few wisps of hydrogen and helium that form the stars. The origins of the Big Bang theory began before Hubble’s discovery. A Russian physicist, A. A. Friedmann had used Einstein’s general relativity to model an expanding universe. At this time, it was a purely theoretical exercise. No one realized then that our universe was expanding.
The rate at which the universe expands is known as the Hubble-Lemaître constant. That naming honours Georges Lemaître. In some ways he was the co-discoverer of the Big Bang. He was among the first to model Einstein’s theories of space and time across an entire universe. As a physicist, Catholic priest and astronomer, he had a clear perspective on this question. He had no problem with the idea of the universe having a unique origin for example. Both Einstein and others had learned that Relativity predicted an expanding universe. But at the time, there was no physical evidence of that. Einstein’s solution was to introduce an extra value to the equations. That balanced the universe’s expansion with an opposing force. For the moment, a stable universe seemed possible.
In the 1920s, astronomers were unsure whether our galaxy was the only structure in the universe. There was no astronomical distance scale. That might explain why most astronomers assumed a static universe. Lemaître was willing to explore a different option. He had seen the evidence from Erwin Hubble’s early observations at Mount Wilson Observatory in California. He published his theory in 1927. He estimated the speed of the expansion using those measurements. They proved that Spacetime was rapidly expanding, carrying along the rest of the physical universe.
Wherever astronomers pointed their telescopes every distant object was part of this rapid expansion. Lemaître understood that an expanding universe must have a tiny beginning. He called this origin point the cosmic atom, from which all matter emerged. Einstein rejected the significance of the new astronomical discoveries for some time. He maintained his belief in a static, unchanging cosmos until 1930, when he traveled halfway across the world from Berlin to Pasadena to see Hubble’s evidence in person. He examined Hubble’s photographs, looked through his telescopes, and declared himself fully persuaded.
He called the stabilizing term Lamda also known as the Cosmic Constant his “worst blunder” but actually it forms the foundation for our present understanding the effects of dark energy, the mysterious force driving the observed accelerated expansion of the universe.
The entire time I was reading I expected to to learn that in 1998, The Undertaker threw Mankind off Hell In A Cell, and plummeted 16 ft through an announcer’s table
Yep that’s not how science is done, but the real story is more interesting I think. It wasn’t Einstein so much as Hubble and Lemaître, but he did acknowledge the error that caused him to miss the expanding universe in his equations.
"This circumstance of an expanding universe is irritating " – Albert Einstein, 1929.
In every direction in the sky, there is a background fizz of light. It is all that remains of the most intense flare of energy ever emitted. To explain it, we must look back to 1929. At that time Edwin Hubble, an astronomer at Caltech, proved that the universe was much larger than anyone had expected and expanding in all directions. From this discovery, two competing explanations developed. The Steady State Theory and the Big Bang. The first allows the universe to create new matter as it expands. Matter just appears from some hidden and rather ghostly source. That permits the universe to look more or less the same as it does today, at least as far as galaxies go. The second treats the universe as a closed system. One that begins with a vast and concentrated supply of energy, which decays into lesser forms. Spreading out as it does. The Big Bang universe is an expanding bubble of space-time, with a few wisps of hydrogen and helium that form the stars. The origins of the Big Bang theory began before Hubble’s discovery. A Russian physicist, A. A. Friedmann had used Einstein’s general relativity to model an expanding universe. At this time, it was a purely theoretical exercise. No one realized then that our universe was expanding.
The rate at which the universe expands is known as the Hubble-Lemaître constant. That naming honours Georges Lemaître. In some ways he was the co-discoverer of the Big Bang. He was among the first to model Einstein’s theories of space and time across an entire universe. As a physicist, Catholic priest and astronomer, he had a clear perspective on this question. He had no problem with the idea of the universe having a unique origin for example. Both Einstein and others had learned that Relativity predicted an expanding universe. But at the time, there was no physical evidence of that. Einstein’s solution was to introduce an extra value to the equations. That balanced the universe’s expansion with an opposing force. For the moment, a stable universe seemed possible.
In the 1920s, astronomers were unsure whether our galaxy was the only structure in the universe. There was no astronomical distance scale. That might explain why most astronomers assumed a static universe. Lemaître was willing to explore a different option. He had seen the evidence from Erwin Hubble’s early observations at Mount Wilson Observatory in California. He published his theory in 1927. He estimated the speed of the expansion using those measurements. They proved that Spacetime was rapidly expanding, carrying along the rest of the physical universe.
Wherever astronomers pointed their telescopes every distant object was part of this rapid expansion. Lemaître understood that an expanding universe must have a tiny beginning. He called this origin point the cosmic atom, from which all matter emerged. Einstein rejected the significance of the new astronomical discoveries for some time. He maintained his belief in a static, unchanging cosmos until 1930, when he traveled halfway across the world from Berlin to Pasadena to see Hubble’s evidence in person. He examined Hubble’s photographs, looked through his telescopes, and declared himself fully persuaded.
He called the stabilizing term Lamda also known as the Cosmic Constant his “worst blunder” but actually it forms the foundation for our present understanding the effects of dark energy, the mysterious force driving the observed accelerated expansion of the universe.
The entire time I was reading I expected to to learn that in 1998, The Undertaker threw Mankind off Hell In A Cell, and plummeted 16 ft through an announcer’s table