On Sat, 09 Feb 2002 13:19:02 +0100 Scott MARTENS <sm at kiera.com> writes:
> Hakki Alacakaptan wrote:
> > Yep, sorry. The universal constant is c of course. The
> cosmological
> > constant, which Einstein later called "the biggest blunder of my
> life", was
> > a repulsive particle force he posited to keep the universe in a
> steady
> > state. Jesuit Father George Lemaitre from Belgium, who became head
> of the
> > Pontifical Academy of Sciences, proposed the big bang theory, and
> after
> > several difficult meetings with Einstein and other scientists in
> 1931-35,
> > gradually won their approval.
> >
> > You guys never heard of Lemaitre? Weird.
>
> I have heard of Lemaitre - I am, afterall, studying at the
> university
> where he worked - but he is not quite so famous a figure as
> Einstein. I
> thought it was Hubble's observations of red-shift in distant
> galaxies
> that convinced Eistein the whole thing had been a bad idea.
That is certainly my understanding of the matter. Anyway, while the Big Bang cosmology represented a very obvious development from the notion of an expanding universe, it is not the only possible one. The Steady State cosmology that was championed by the late Fred Hoyle and Herman Bondi, also posited an expanding universe, but unlike the Big Bang theory, it held that the universe had no beginning and no end. Instead, it was conceived as always existing, forever expanding, with a continuous creation of new matter, keeping the cosmic density constant over time. The Big Bang theory triumphed over the Steady State theory in the 1960s with the discovery of cosmic background radiation, which was interpreted as having been left over from the Big Bang. Fred Hoyle, himself was unconvinced by all this, and to the end of his life (he died only a few weeks ago), he kept on developing revised versions of the Steady State theory.
>
> Regardless of what Einstein thought of it, I don't have the
> impression
> that the cosmological constant is dead. I can't be effectively
> measured, and the major debate is whether or not it is zero.
> Weinberg
> wrote about it as late as the early 90's, which is roughly when I
> gave
> up trying to be a physicist.
>
> The cosmological constant is not exactly a repulsive force, although
> it
> has similar effects. It is an attempt quantify vaccum energy, and
> in an
> expanding, closed universe, can't possibly be constant. The link
> between vaccuum energies and the cosmological constant is a
> post-Einsteinian thing.
Basically a development of the past twenty years, starting I believe with Guth's work on the inflation hypothesis.
>
> > Papal endorsement soon followed, as the big bang does not allow
> any
> > discussion of what happened before it - there is no "before".
> Leaves lots of
> > room for the Almighty, needless to say. All this is also an
> interesting
> > exception to Thomas Kuhn's rule that scientists cling to their
> paradigms
> > until the bitter end.
>
> I've always thought the big bang served Marxist philosophy better
> than
> Christian theology. The universe develops, it has a history, and it
> is
> rife with constraints that must be resolved dynamically. This is
> much
> closer to the world-view expressed in Engels' Dialectics of Nature
> than
> that of the Catholic Church.
It is interesting to note that for a long time, the Big Bang theory was proscribed in the Soviet Union, on the grounds that it was not consistent with Engels' philosophy of nature. Engels after all spoke of the universe as being infinite in both size and duration, and so the Big Bang was taken as being contrary to Engels. Nevertheless, I think that if Engels had the oppurtunity to have lived to see the emergence of this theory, he might have found much to approve of.
Jim F.
>
> Scott Martens
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