The Real Father of the Big Bang | Evolution News

Editor’s Note: Discovery Institute Press is pleased to announce the publicationBig Bang Revolutionaries: The untold story of three scientists who reshaped cosmology, by Jean-Pierre Luminette. The book received rave reviews, including from three Nobel Prize winners. The following is an excerpt from Chapter One.

The purpose of this book is not to provide an exhaustive review of the history of cosmology over the centuries, nor to review the decades of development of relativistic cosmology. There is much existing research on this topic, some of which is of high quality. Instead, I propose to present and analyze texts that originate from the three main ideas of relativistic cosmology:

• expansion of the universe
• Possible single origin of the universe
• The existence of cosmic background radiation, the fossil memory of its origin.

These texts are the work of three pioneers who revealed this new vision of the world with only their pen and brilliant intuition: Alexander Friedmann (18881925), Georges Lematre (18941966) and Russian-American George Gamow (19041968). At least three of their articles, the first published in 1922, the second in 1931, and the third in 1948, make them the true fathers of the Big Bang.

historical anomaly

One of the anomalies in the history of modern science is that, in the minds and pens of many well-known science writers, the concepts of the expanding universe and the Big Bang have been attributed to two other very famous scientists: Edwin Hubble (1889-1953) and Albert Einstein (18791955). However, although Hubble did experimentally demonstrate a linear relationship between the spectral redshift of a galaxy and its distance from us, he neither discovered such a systematic spectral redshift (a discovery that dates back to the American Vis Tolliver), also did not accept a relativistic explanation for his observations, namely the expansion of space itself, not just the motion of galaxies.

As for Einstein, the inventor of the theory of relativity, we will see how he rejected the idea of ​​an expanding universe for more than a decade, apparently on the basis of philosophical bias. Once he was forced to revise his views when faced with observational evidence, he stopped working in the field.

It’s one thing for Friedman and LeMat to be virtually unknown to the public. The underestimation of their scientific contributions by the physicist community, and even astrophysicists and cosmologists, is another reason. It would be quite surprising if one thought that the concepts they enacted would remain one of the most remarkable achievements of twentieth-century science.However Encyclopedia of Scientist Biographies Only short notice to Friedman and Lemathe; French dictionary Inventors and Scientists Quoting LeMaitre but not Friedman; although the most serious and complete compilation of its kind, Dictionary of Scientific Biography, An article was dedicated to each, the development of which was very limited considering the scope of their work. Gamow fares better. He is widely quoted in all the above-mentioned works, and even some members of the public know his name from the popular books he wrote, which were translated into many languages.

in British and American literature

To be sure, Friedman and LeMathere received some recognition outside of encyclopedias and professional dictionaries. In British and American literature, Friedman’s name often appears in the universal Big Bang model, along with the names of Howard P. Robertson and Arthur G. Walker in the so-called FRW model. Although the term FLRW model is increasingly used, Lematres’ name is the least known of the three. In fact, the Georges Lermate International Prize for Cosmology was established in 1997, and the 2019 Nobel Prize winner, physicist PJE Peebles, is the first winner of the prize (the author of this article is the third winner). And in 2018, members of the International Astronomical Union voted to rename Hubble’s law to the Hubble-Lematt law. Nonetheless, the respective reputations of Lematt, Friedmann, and Gamow were inversely proportional to the importance of their cosmological work.

There are many possible reasons for this. Some might point to the language barrier. Friedmann published his work in German or Russian, while Lemathe wrote most of his articles in French. However, Einstein and the French physicist and mathematician Henri Poincaré (to name just two examples) were also recognized for expressing their basic results in their native language.

Perhaps more importantly, the fact that Friedman and Lemathe were not part of the Anglo-American empire poses a serious obstacle to international scientific recognition today, both during life and after death. (Gamov settled in the United States in 1934.)

Of course, the historical record may also have been distorted by this or that influential chronicler. For example, a 1933 article on relativistic cosmology by the American physicist Howard Robertson, although excellent in other respects, is misleading in its account of contemporary history. In suggesting that the concept of an expanding universe has been accepted, it reflects more the author’s secret wishes than historical objectivity.

A case of severe neglect

As for the particularly severe neglect of Lemait, note that Soviet writers such as Friedman and Gamow received far more attention from American scientists than French-speaking writers such as Lemait. The first and obvious reason is that the scientific output of the Soviet Union was much greater than that of French-speaking scientists. But political and ideological motivations also play a role. Beginning with the emergence of Soviet communism, which threatened American capitalist values, and especially during the Cold War, American researchers paid special attention to the work of their adversaries. Furthermore, after the fall of the Soviet regime, most of Russia’s best physicists had to emigrate abroad to continue working in their fields, while the United States created positions capable of absorbing the sudden influx of senior researchers.

In addition to these general reasons, there are some specific ones. Friedman died prematurely before astronomical observations could even support his thesis. Were it not for his early death, one wonders how far the Russian scientist would have advanced his research in relativistic cosmology. In the case of Lemathe, although he pioneered the first two conceptual advances mentioned above, his profession as a mathematician and his religious beliefs undoubtedly exemplified the professional resistance to him among physicists and astronomers. As for Gamow, according to his closest collaborators Ralf Alfer and Robert Herman, if he had any knowledge of various scientific fields (nuclear physics, astrophysics, cosmology, and even genetics) The contribution is not really recognized, then to some extent this is due to Gamow’s contribution. A scientist with a sense of humor takes his research work less seriously.