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''' Monseigneur Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître,''' ({{IPA-fr|ʒɔʁʒə ləmɛtʁ|lang|Georges Lemaître.ogg}}; 17 July 1894 &ndash; 20 June 1966) was a Belgian [[Roman Catholic]] [[priest]], [[astronomy|astronomer]] and professor of [[physics]] at the [[Université catholique de Louvain]].<ref>{{cite journal|title=Obituary: Georges Lemaitre|journal=Physics Today|date=September 1966|volume=19|issue=9|pages=119|url=http://www.physicstoday.org/resource/1/phtoad/v19/i9/p119_s2?bypassSSO=1|doi=10.1063/1.3048455}}</ref> He was the first known academic to propose the theory of the [[Metric expansion of space|expansion of the Universe]], widely misattributed to [[Edwin Hubble]].<ref>http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110627/full/news.2011.385.html</ref><ref>http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v479/n7372/full/479171a.html#/ref2</ref> He was also the first to derive what is now known as [[Hubble's law]] and made the first estimation of what is now called the [[Hubble constant]], which he published in 1927, two years before Hubble's article.<ref>[[Sidney van den Bergh]] [http://arxiv.org/abs/1106.1195 arxiv.org] 6 Jun 2011 {{arxiv|1106.1195v1}} [physics.hist-ph]</ref><ref>David L. Block [http://arxiv.org/abs/1106.3928 arxiv.org] 20 Jun 2011 & 8 Jul 2011 {{arxiv|1106.3928v2}} [physics.hist-ph]</ref><ref>Eugenie Samuel Reich [http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110627/full/news.2011.385.html Published online 27 June 2011| Nature|] {{doi|10.1038/news.2011.385}}</ref><ref>http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v479/n7372/full/479171a.html</ref>
''' Monseigneur Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître,''' ({{IPA-fr|ʒɔʁʒə ləmɛtʁ|lang|Georges Lemaître.ogg}}; 17 July 1894 &ndash; 20 June 1966) was a Belgian [[Roman Catholic]] [[priest]], [[astronomy|astronomer]] and professor of [[physics]] at the [[Catholic University of Leuven]].<ref>{{cite journal|title=Obituary: Georges Lemaitre|journal=Physics Today|date=September 1966|volume=19|issue=9|pages=119|url=http://www.physicstoday.org/resource/1/phtoad/v19/i9/p119_s2?bypassSSO=1|doi=10.1063/1.3048455}}</ref> He was the first known academic to propose the theory of the [[Metric expansion of space|expansion of the Universe]], widely misattributed to [[Edwin Hubble]].<ref>http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110627/full/news.2011.385.html</ref><ref>http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v479/n7372/full/479171a.html#/ref2</ref> He was also the first to derive what is now known as [[Hubble's law]] and made the first estimation of what is now called the [[Hubble constant]], which he published in 1927, two years before Hubble's article.<ref>[[Sidney van den Bergh]] [http://arxiv.org/abs/1106.1195 arxiv.org] 6 Jun 2011 {{arxiv|1106.1195v1}} [physics.hist-ph]</ref><ref>David L. Block [http://arxiv.org/abs/1106.3928 arxiv.org] 20 Jun 2011 & 8 Jul 2011 {{arxiv|1106.3928v2}} [physics.hist-ph]</ref><ref>Eugenie Samuel Reich [http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110627/full/news.2011.385.html Published online 27 June 2011| Nature|] {{doi|10.1038/news.2011.385}}</ref><ref>http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v479/n7372/full/479171a.html</ref>
Lemaître also proposed what became known as the [[Big Bang]] theory of the origin of the [[Universe]], which he called his 'hypothesis of the [[primeval atom]] or the "Cosmic Egg"'.<ref>[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/dp27bi.html A Science Odyssey: People and Discoveries: Big bang theory is introduced<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>
Lemaître also proposed what became known as the [[Big Bang]] theory of the origin of the [[Universe]], which he called his 'hypothesis of the [[primeval atom]] or the "Cosmic Egg"'.<ref>[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/dp27bi.html A Science Odyssey: People and Discoveries: Big bang theory is introduced<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>


Revision as of 09:02, 24 May 2014

This article is about the physicist and priest. For the spacecraft, see Georges Lemaître ATV. For the winner of the world's first motor race, see Georges Lemaître (motorist).
Msgr. Fr. Georges Lemaître
Monseigneur Georges Lemaître, priest and scientist
Born(1894-07-17)17 July 1894
Charleroi, Belgium
Died20 June 1966(1966-06-20) (aged 71)
Leuven, Belgium
NationalityBelgian
Alma materUniversity of Cambridge
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (PhD)
Known forTheory of the expansion of the Universe
Big Bang theory
Lemaître coordinates
AwardsEddington Medal (1953)
Scientific career
FieldsCosmology
Astrophysics
InstitutionsCatholic University of Leuven
Doctoral advisorHarlow Shapley
Doctoral studentsLouis Philippe Bouckaert
Signature

Monseigneur Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître, (French: [ʒɔʁʒə ləmɛtʁ] ⓘ; 17 July 1894 – 20 June 1966) was a Belgian Roman Catholic priest, astronomer and professor of physics at the Catholic University of Leuven.[1] He was the first known academic to propose the theory of the expansion of the Universe, widely misattributed to Edwin Hubble.[2][3] He was also the first to derive what is now known as Hubble's law and made the first estimation of what is now called the Hubble constant, which he published in 1927, two years before Hubble's article.[4][5][6][7] Lemaître also proposed what became known as the Big Bang theory of the origin of the Universe, which he called his 'hypothesis of the primeval atom or the "Cosmic Egg"'.[8]

Biography

According to the Big Bang theory, the universe emerged from an extremely dense and hot state (singularity). Space itself has been expanding ever since, carrying galaxies with it, like raisins in a rising loaf of bread. The graphic scheme above is an artist's conception illustrating the expansion of a portion of a flat universe.

After a classical education at a Jesuit secondary school (Collège du Sacré-Coeur, Charleroi), Lemaître began studying civil engineering at the Université catholique de Louvain at the age of 17. In 1914, he interrupted his studies to serve as an artillery officer in the Belgian army for the duration of World War I. At the end of hostilities, he received the Belgian War Cross with palms.

After the war, he studied physics and mathematics, and began to prepare for the priesthood. He obtained his doctorate in 1920 with a thesis entitled l'Approximation des fonctions de plusieurs variables réelles (Approximation of functions of several real variables), written under the direction of Charles de la Vallée-Poussin. He was ordained a priest in 1923.

In 1923, he became a graduate student in astronomy at the University of Cambridge, spending a year at St Edmund's House (now St Edmund's College, Cambridge). He worked with Arthur Eddington who initiated him into modern cosmology, stellar astronomy, and numerical analysis. He spent the following year at Harvard College Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts with Harlow Shapley, who had just gained a name for his work on nebulae, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he registered for the doctorate in sciences.

In 1925, on his return to Belgium, he became a part-time lecturer at the Université catholique de Louvain. He then began the report which would bring him international fame, published in 1927 in the Annales de la Société Scientifique de Bruxelles (Annals of the Scientific Society of Brussels), under the title "Un Univers homogène de masse constante et de rayon croissant rendant compte de la vitesse radiale des nébuleuses extragalactiques" ("A homogeneous Universe of constant mass and growing radius accounting for the radial velocity of extragalactic nebulae").[9] In this report, he presented his new idea of an expanding Universe (he also derived Hubble's law and provided the first observational estimation of the Hubble constant[10]) but not yet that of the primeval atom. Instead, the initial state was taken as Einstein's own finite-size static universe model. The paper had little impact because the journal in which it was published was not widely read by astronomers outside of Belgium ; Lemaître translated his article into English in 1931 with the help of Arthur Eddington but the part of it pertaining to the estimation of the "Hubble constant" is not translated in the 1931 paper, for reasons that have never been properly explained.[11]

At this time, Einstein, while not taking exception to the mathematics of Lemaître's theory, refused to accept the idea of an expanding universe; Lemaître recalled him commenting "Vos calculs sont corrects, mais votre physique est abominable"[12] ("Your calculations are correct, but your physics is atrocious.") The same year, Lemaître returned to MIT to present his doctoral thesis on The gravitational field in a fluid sphere of uniform invariant density according to the theory of relativity. Upon obtaining the PhD, he was named ordinary professor at the Catholic University of Louvain.

In 1930, Eddington published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society a long commentary on Lemaître's 1927 article, in which he described the latter as a "brilliant solution" to the outstanding problems of cosmology.[13] The original paper was published in an abbreviated English translation in 1931, along with a sequel by Lemaître responding to Eddington's comments.[14] Lemaître was then invited to London in order to take part in a meeting of the British Association on the relation between the physical Universe and spirituality. There he proposed that the Universe expanded from an initial point, which he called the "Primeval Atom" and developed in a report published in Nature.[15] Lemaître himself also described his theory as "the Cosmic Egg exploding at the moment of the creation"; it became better known as the "Big Bang theory," a pejorative term coined during a BBC radio broadcast by Fred Hoyle who was an obstinate proponent of the steady state universe, even until his death in 2001.

This proposal met with skepticism from his fellow scientists at the time. Eddington found Lemaître's notion unpleasant. Einstein found it suspect because he deemed it unjustifiable from a physical point of view. On the other hand, Einstein encouraged Lemaître to look into the possibility of models of non-isotropic expansion, so it is clear he was not altogether dismissive of the concept. He also appreciated Lemaître's argument that a static-Einstein model of the universe could not be sustained indefinitely into the past.

In January 1933, Lemaître and Einstein, who had met on several occasions—in 1927 in Brussels, at the time of a Solvay Conference, in 1932 in Belgium, at the time of a cycle of conferences in Brussels and lastly in 1935 at Princeton—traveled together to the U.S. state of California for a series of seminars. After the Belgian detailed his theory, Einstein stood up, applauded, and is supposed to have said, "This is the most beautiful and satisfactory explanation of creation to which I have ever listened."[16] However there is disagreement over the reporting of this quote in the newspapers of the time, and it may be that Einstein was not actually referring to the theory as a whole but to Lemaître's proposal that cosmic rays may in fact be the leftover artifacts of the initial "explosion". Later research on cosmic rays by Robert Millikan would undercut this proposal, however.

In 1933, when he resumed his theory of the expanding Universe and published a more detailed version in the Annals of the Scientific Society of Brussels, Lemaître would achieve his greatest glory. Newspapers around the world called him a famous Belgian scientist and described him as the leader of the new cosmological physics.

On 17 March 1934, Lemaître received the Francqui Prize, the highest Belgian scientific distinction, from King Léopold III. His proposers were Albert Einstein, Charles de la Vallée-Poussin and Alexandre de Hemptinne. The members of the international jury were Eddington, Langevin and Théophile de Donder. Another distinction that the Belgian government reserves for exceptional scientists was allotted to him in 1950: the decennial prize for applied sciences for the period 1933–1942.[citation needed]

In 1936, he was elected member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. He took an active role there, becoming its president in March 1960 and remaining so until his death. During Vatican II he was asked to serve on the first special commission to examine the question of contraception. However, as he could not travel to Rome because of his health (he had suffered a heart attack in December 1964), Lemaître demurred, expressing his surprise that he was even chosen, at the time telling a Dominican colleague, P. Henri de Riedmatten, that he thought it was dangerous for a mathematician to venture outside of his speciality.[17] He was also named prelate (Monsignor) in 1960 by Pope John XXIII.

In 1941, he was elected member of the Royal Academy of Sciences and Arts of Belgium. [citation needed]

In 1946, he published his book on L'Hypothèse de l'Atome Primitif (The Primeval Atom Hypothesis). It would be translated into Spanish in the same year and into English in 1950.[citation needed]

By 1951, Pope Pius XII declared that Lemaître's theory provided a scientific validation for existence of God and Catholicism. However, Lemaître resented the Pope's proclamation.[18][19] When Lemaître and Daniel O'Connell, the Pope's science advisor, tried to persuade the Pope not to mention Creationism publicly anymore, the Pope agreed. He persuaded the Pope to stop making proclamations about cosmology.[20] While a devout Roman Catholic, he was against mixing science with religion.[21]

In 1953, he was given the inaugural Eddington Medal awarded by the Royal Astronomical Society.[22][23]

During the 1950s, he gradually gave up part of his teaching workload, ending it completely with his éméritat in 1964.

At the end of his life, he was devoted more and more to numerical calculation. He was in fact a remarkable algebraicist and arithmetical calculator. Since 1930, he used the most powerful calculating machines of the time, the Mercedes. In 1958 he was introduced to the University's Burroughs E 101, its first electronic computer. Lemaître maintained a strong interest in the development of computers and, even more, in the problems of language and computer programming. Throughout his latter years these were abiding interests until they absorbed him almost completely.

He died on 20 June 1966, shortly after having learned of the discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation, which provided further evidence for his proposal about the birth of the Universe.

In 2005, Lemaître was voted to the 61st place of [De Grootste Belg] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) ("The Greatest Belgian"), a Flemish television program on the VRT. In the same year he was voted to the 78th place by the audience of the [Le plus grand Belge] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) ("The Greatest Belgian"), a television show of the RTBF.

Work

Lemaître was a pioneer in applying Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity to cosmology. In a 1927 article, which preceded Edwin Hubble's landmark article by two years, Lemaître derived what became known as Hubble's law and proposed it as a generic phenomenon in relativistic cosmology. Lemaître also estimated the numerical value of the Hubble constant. However, the data used by Lemaître did not allow him to prove that there was an actual linear relation, which Hubble did two years later.

Einstein was skeptical of this paper. When Lemaître approached Einstein at the 1927 Solvay Conference, the latter pointed out that Alexander Friedmann had proposed a similar solution to Einstein's equations in 1922, implying that the radius of the universe increased over time. (Einstein had also criticized Friedmann's calculations, but withdrew his comments.) In 1931, his annus mirabilis,[24] Lemaître published an article in Nature setting out his theory of the "primeval atom."

Friedmann was handicapped by living and working in the USSR, and died in 1925, soon after inventing the Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker metric. Because Lemaître spent his entire career in Europe, his scientific work is not as well known in the United States as that of Hubble or Einstein, both well known in the U.S. by virtue of residing there. Nevertheless, Lemaître's theory changed the course of cosmology. This was because Lemaître:

  • Was well acquainted with the work of astronomers, and designed his theory to have testable implications and to be in accord with observations of the time, in particular to explain the observed redshift of galaxies and the linear relation between distances and velocities;
  • Proposed his theory at an opportune time, since Edwin Hubble would soon publish his velocity-distance relation that strongly supported an expanding universe and, consequently, the Big Bang theory;
  • Had studied under Arthur Eddington, who made sure that Lemaître got a hearing in the scientific community.

Both Friedmann and Lemaître proposed relativistic cosmologies featuring an expanding universe. However, Lemaître was the first to propose that the expansion explains the redshift of galaxies. He further concluded that an initial "creation-like" event must have occurred. In the 1980s, Alan Guth and Andrei Linde modified this theory by adding to it a period of inflation.

Einstein at first dismissed Friedmann, and then (privately) Lemaître, out of hand, saying that not all mathematics lead to correct theories. After Hubble's discovery was published, Einstein quickly and publicly endorsed Lemaître's theory, helping both the theory and its proposer get fast recognition.[25]

Lemaître was also an early adopter of computers for cosmological calculations. He introduced the first computer to his university (a Burroughs E101) in 1958 and was one of the inventors of the Fast Fourier transform algorithm.[26]

In 1933, Lemaître found an important inhomogeneous solution of Einstein's field equations describing a spherical dust cloud, the Lemaître–Tolman metric.

In 1931, Lemaitre was the first scientist to propose the expansion of the Universe was actually accelerating which was confirmed observationally in the 1990s through observations of very distant Type IA supernova with the Hubble Space Telescope.[27]

In 1948 Lemaître published[28] a polished mathematical essay "Quaternions et espace elliptique" which clarified an obscure space. William Kingdon Clifford had cryptically described elliptic space in 1873 at a time when versors were too common to mention. Lemaître developed the theory of quaternions from first principles so that his essay can stand on its own, but he recalled the Erlangen program in geometry while developing the metric geometry of elliptic space. H. S. M. Coxeter, another contributor to elliptic geometry, summarized[29] Lemaître's work for Mathematical Reviews.

Namesakes

Bibliography

  • G. Lemaître, Discussion sur l'évolution de l'univers, 1933
  • G. Lemaître, L'Hypothèse de l'atome primitif, 1946
  • G. Lemaître, The Primeval Atom - an Essay on Cosmogony, D. Van Nostrand Co, 1950.
  • Lemaître, G. (1931). "The Evolution of the Universe: Discussion". Nature. 128 (3234): 699–701. Bibcode:1931Natur.128..704L. doi:10.1038/128704a0. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Lemaître, G. (1927). "Un univers homogène de masse constante et de rayon croissant rendant compte de la vitesse radiale des nébuleuses extragalactiques". Annals of the Scientific Society of Brussels. 47A: 41. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help) Template:Fr icon
(Translated in: "A Homogeneous Universe of Constant Mass and Growing Radius Accounting for the Radial Velocity of Extragalactic Nebulae". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 91: 483–490. 1931. Bibcode:1931MNRAS..91..483L. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help))

See also

References

  1. ^ "Obituary: Georges Lemaitre". Physics Today. 19 (9): 119. September 1966. doi:10.1063/1.3048455.
  2. ^ http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110627/full/news.2011.385.html
  3. ^ http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v479/n7372/full/479171a.html#/ref2
  4. ^ Sidney van den Bergh arxiv.org 6 Jun 2011 arXiv:1106.1195v1 [physics.hist-ph]
  5. ^ David L. Block arxiv.org 20 Jun 2011 & 8 Jul 2011 arXiv:1106.3928v2 [physics.hist-ph]
  6. ^ Eugenie Samuel Reich Published online 27 June 2011| Nature| doi:10.1038/news.2011.385
  7. ^ http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v479/n7372/full/479171a.html
  8. ^ A Science Odyssey: People and Discoveries: Big bang theory is introduced
  9. ^ G. Lemaître (April 1927). "Un Univers homogène de masse constante et de rayon croissant rendant compte de la vitesse radiale des nébuleuses extra-galactiques" (PDF). Annales de la Société Scientifique de Bruxelles (in French). 47: 49. Bibcode:1927ASSB...47...49L.
  10. ^ Ari Belenkiy: Alexander Friedmann and the origins of modern cosmology. Phys. Today 65(10), 38 (2012); doi: 10.1063/PT.3.1750
  11. ^ Michael Way1 and Harry Nussbaumer Published online August 2011| Physics Today| doi:10.1063/PT.3.1194
  12. ^ Deprit, A. (1984). "Monsignor Georges Lemaître". In A. Barger (ed) (ed.). The Big Bang and Georges Lemaître. Reidel. p. 370. {{cite conference}}: |editor= has generic name (help); Unknown parameter |booktitle= ignored (|book-title= suggested) (help)
  13. ^ Eddington, A. S., "On the instability of Einstein's spherical world", Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 90, p.668-688, 05/1930
  14. ^ Lemaître, G., "Expansion of the universe, The expanding universe", Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 91, p.490-501, 03/1931
  15. ^ G. Lemaître, The Beginning of the World from the Point of View of Quantum Theory, Nature 127 (1931), n. 3210, pp. 706. doi:10.1038/127706b0 Bibcode:1931Natur.127..706L
  16. ^ Kragh, Helge, 1996. Cosmology and Controversy". p. 55.
  17. ^ Lambert, Dominique, 2000. Un Atome d'Univers. Lessius, p. 302.
  18. ^ Peter T. Landsberg (1999). Seeking Ultimates: An Intuitive Guide to Physics, Second Edition. CRC Press. p. 236. ISBN 9780750306577. Indeed the attempt in 1951 by Pope Pius XII to look forward to a time when creation would be established by science, was resented by several physicists, notably by George Gamow and even George Lemaitre, a member of the Pontifical Academy.
  19. ^ "Georges Lemaître, Father of the Big Bang". COSMIC HORIZONS: ASTRONOMY AT THE CUTTING EDGE. American Museum of Natural History. 2000. Retrieved 13 April 2013. It is tempting to think that Lemaître's deeply-held religious beliefs might have led him to the notion of a beginning of time. After all, the Judeo-Christian tradition had propagated a similar idea for millennia. Yet Lemaître clearly insisted that there was neither a connection nor a conflict between his religion and his science. Rather he kept them entirely separate, treating them as different, parallel interpretations of the world, both of which he believed with personal conviction. Indeed, when Pope Pius XII referred to the new theory of the origin of the universe as a scientific validation of the Catholic faith, Lemaître was rather alarmed. {{cite web}}: Cite uses deprecated parameter |authors= (help)
  20. ^ Simon Singh (2010). Big Bang. HarperCollins UK. p. 362. ISBN 9780007375509. Lemaître was determined to discourage the Pope from making proclamations about cosmology, partly to halt the embarrassment that was being caused to supporters of the Big Bang, but also to avoid any potential difficulties for the Church. ...Lemaître contacted Daniel O'Connell, director of the Vatican Observatory and the Pope's science advisor, and suggested that together they try to persuade the Pope to keep quiet on cosmology. The Pope was surprisingly compliant and agreed to the request - the Big Bang would no longer be a matter suitable for Papal addresses.
  21. ^ Simon Singh (2010). Big Bang. HarperCollins UK. p. 362. ISBN 9780007375509. It was Lemaître's firm belief that scientific endeavour should stand isolated from the religious realm. With specific regard to his Big Bang theory, he commented: 'As far as I can see, such a theory remains entirely outside any metaphysical or religious question.' Lemaître had always been careful to keep his parallel careers in cosmology and theology on separate tracks, in the belief that one led him to a clearer comprehension of the material world, while the other led to a greater understanding of the spiritual realm... ...Not surprisingly, he was frustrated and annoyed by the Pope's deliberate mixing of theology and cosmology. One student who saw Lemaître upon his return from hearing the Pope's address to the Academy recalled him 'storming into class...his usual jocularity entirely missing'.
  22. ^ http://www.ras.org.uk/awards-and-grants/awards/269?task=view
  23. ^ Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 113, p.2
  24. ^ Luminet, Jean-Pierre (16 July 2011). "Editorial note to: Georges Lemaître, The beginning of the world from the point of view of quantum theory". General Relativity and Gravitation. 43 (10): 2911–2928. arXiv:1105.6271. Bibcode:2011GReGr..43.2911L. doi:10.1007/s10714-011-1213-7. ISSN 0001-7701. Retrieved 28 February 2012.
  25. ^ Simon Singh, Big Bang.
  26. ^ Biography at UCL
  27. ^ Longair, Malcolm (2007). The Cosmic Century. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. pp. 118–119. ISBN 978-0-521-47436-8.
  28. ^ Georges Lemaître (1948) "Quaternions et espace elliptique", Acta Pontifical Academy of Sciences 12:57–78
  29. ^ H.S.M. Coxeter, English synopsis of Lemaître in Mathematical Reviews

Books

  • Farrell, John (2005). The Day Without Yesterday: Lemaitre, Einstein, and the Birth of Modern Cosmology. New York, NY: Thunder's Mouth Press. ISBN 1-56025-660-5.
  • Holder, Rodney; Mitton, Simon (2013). Georges Lemaître: Life, Science and Legacy (Astrophysics and Space Science Library 395). Springer. ISBN 3642322530.
  • Nussbaumer, Harry; Bieri, Lydia (2009). Discovering the Expanding Universe. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-51484-2.

Further reading

  • Berenda, Carlton W. (1951) "Notes on Lemaître's Cosmogony", The Journal of Philosophy Vol. 48, No. 10.
  • Berger, André (1984) The Big Bang and Georges Lemaître, D. Reidel.
  • Cevasco, George A. (1954) "The Universe and Abbe Lemaitre", Irish Monthly Vol. 83, No. 969.
  • Godart, Odon & Heller, Michal (1985) Cosmology of Lemaître, Pachart Publishing House.
  • McCrea, William H. (September–October 1970) "Cosmology Today: A Review of the State of the Science with Particular Emphasis on the Contributions of Georges Lemaître", American Scientist Vol. 58, No. 5.
  • Kragh, Helge (1970). "Georges Lemaître" (PDF). In Gillispie, Charles (ed.). Dictionary of Scientific Biography. New York: Scribner & American Council of Learned Societies. pp. 542–543. ISBN 978-0-684-10114-9.
  • Turek, Jósef. Georges Lemaître and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Specola Vaticana, 1989.

External links

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