The Greatest Scientist of the 20th Century You've Probably Never Heard Of

There is a perception that religion and science go together like mayonnaise and marshmallows. In some cases, this may be true. But on a typically warm January in Southern California in 1933 at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California (the same place and time that Jack Parsons, of rocket science fame, was doing his experiments): the history intersects!), religion and science showed that these Two ideals did not have to be enemies. That day, some of the

greatest

scientific luminaries of the time from around the world, Edwin Hubble and Albert Einstein, to name two, gathered to listen to a series of lectures.

But it was one man and one lecture that caused Albert Einstein to declare: "This is the most beautiful and satisfying explanation of creation that I have ever

heard

." It is well known that on the eve of the rise of the Third Reich, Einstein left his homeland, Germany, for the United States. But few know that the Belgian Catholic priest Georges Lemaitre was traveling with him, a man whom Einstein greatly respected. Georges Lemaitre was a religious man, but also a great

scientist

, a cosmologist in fact. He studied the universe and, most notably, its beginnings. His research, beliefs and conclusions greatly influence the way we understand our existence today.

Born in 1894 in Charleroi, Belgium, Georges was interested from the beginning in discovering how things worked around him. He began his studies in civil engineering at the Catholic University of Louvain, the largest French-speaking university in Belgium. He took a break from his studies to serve in the Belgian army as an officer during World War I. He performed admirably and, at the end of the war, he received a Belgian Croix de Guerre, an award for bravery on the battlefield. He then returned to college and earned degrees in mathematics and philosophy. From a young age, Georges embraced religion and understood the relationship he could have with science.

He emulated his former teacher, Cardinal Desire Mercier, who had progressive beliefs in philosophy and cosmology. So, instead of entering an academic life, he entered the priesthood. On September 23, 1923, Lemaître was ordained a priest by his spiritual teacher, Cardinal Mercier. During his free time, Father Lemaître continued his scientific studies, especially on the theories of general and special relativity. Cardinal Mercier, recognizing Lemaître's talent, allowed him to go to study at the prestigious Harvard Observatory. At the same time, Lemaître earned a doctorate in physics from MIT. Lemaitre's considerable and varied studies allowed him to cross paths with other prominent astronomers and cosmologists of the time, including George Hale (discoverer of solar vortices and magnetic sunspots) and Vesto Slipher (galactic redshifts and oversaw the discovery of Pluto). , which had a great influence on his later findings.

It was at that moment that Lemaitre came up with a profound theory that still impacts our study of the universe today. In 1927, he published his paper "A Homogeneous Universe of Constant Mass and Increasing Radius Explaining the Radial Velocity of Extragalactic Nebulae." In it, he proposed and described his theory of an expanding universe. Using Einstein's theory of relativity as a guide, Lemaitre speculated that space is constantly expanding and, therefore, the distance between galaxies is also increasing. Hubble would later prove the same thing and to this day is credited with coming up with the idea. In addition, Lemaître discovered what has since become known as “Hubble's law,” an expansion rate related to the distance of galaxies from Earth.

Lemaître also derived what is now known as the "Hubble Constant." In both cases, he did so before Hubble published his work on these same revolutionary ideas. Hubble's real contribution in this case was to provide the observational basis for Lemaitre's theory, based primarily on mathematics. Unfortunately for Lemaître, his Nobel Prize-worthy paper (although at the time astronomers could not win Nobel Prizes for their work in astronomy because it was not yet considered part of Physics) had little impact on the scientific community due to its publication. in a magazine barely read outside Belgium. But one man in particular read it: Albert Einstein.

Lemaître and Einstein first met in 1927 at the famous fifth Solvay Conference in Brussels. Impressed by Lemaître's findings, but not influenced, he told him: "Your calculations are correct, but your physics is abominable." Essentially, Einstein thought Lemaître's mathematics was correct, but what it seemed to show was not. In 1931, wanting his theories to be more widely read, Lemaître sent his paper to Sir Arthur Eddington, a British astrophysicist who wanted to make scientific theories accessible to everyone. (He was the one who announced and helped explain Einstein's theory of relativity to the English-speaking world when he was still a

scientist

based in Germany.) Eddington translated Lemaître's work and published it in "Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society." ”, a peer-reviewed journal that still exists today.

After this publication, it became clear to both skeptics and Lemaître himself that something was missing from this theory. The universe is continually expanding, but when and how did the expansion begin? This left Lemaître perplexed, but like a good scientist, he continued to question. Just a few months later, using Eddington's 1931 talk on the end of the universe titled “On the End of the World from the Point of View of Mathematical Physics” as a guide, Lemaître devised another groundbreaking theory. In a letter dated May 9, 1931 to the journal Nature (also published today and since 1869), Lemaître wrote: If the world had begun with a single quantum, the notions of space and time would have no meaning at the beginning. ; they would only begin to have sensible meaning when the original quanta had been divided into a sufficient number of quanta.

If this suggestion is correct, the beginning of the world occurred shortly before the beginning of space and time. This would later be coined in a 1950 collection of essays by Lemaître as “The Primitive Atom,” where he would also refer to the beginning as a “now without yesterday,” or mistranslated and more popularly known as “the day without yesterday.” .” This was the basis of what would become known as the “Big Bang theory,” after several other scientists joined Lemaître's theory. Many skeptics of the time did not agree with this theory of origin. They believed that Lemaître's religious background clouded his scientific process.

Essentially, what Lemaître was claiming, according to critics, was that something had to have somehow created the “primitive atom,” leaving open the possibility of a greater being. In fact, Pope Pius XII proclaimed in 1952 that the big bang theory affirmed the notion of a “transcendental creator” and was therefore in harmony with Catholic dogma. As for Lemaître, he did not appreciate the Pope's assessment and argued vehemently with him on the subject, trying to get the Pope to stop using his work as an argument in favor of creationism, preferring that his work stand alone or not, without allowing the religions ideas to cloud people's perception of it. (Ironically, since Lemaître's mathematics and theories were generally sound given the state of scientific knowledge of the time, in many of these cases it was the dissident scientists who allowed their own prejudices to influence their perception of Lemaître's work ).

Despite the conflict, Lemaître detailed all of these theories before an astonished audience in 1933 at the aforementioned conference in Pasadena, California. When he finished and Einstein proclaimed his now-famous quote, New York Times writer Duncan Aikman, who was covering the conference, snapped a photograph of the two scientists along with the caption: “They have deep respect and admiration for each other.” . " In the same article, Aikman continued: "There is no conflict between religion and science," Lemaitre has been telling the public over and over again in this country...His point of view is interesting and important not because he is a Catholic priest, not because he is one of the leading mathematical physicists of our time, but because he is both.