Related papers: A new perspective on steady-state cosmology: from …
We present a translation and analysis of an unpublished manuscript by Albert Einstein in which he attempted to construct a 'steady-state' model of the universe. The manuscript, which appears to have been written in early 1931, demonstrates…
It is commonly known that the steady-state model of the universe was proposed and championed in a series of influential papers around mid-twenty century by Fred Hoyle, Hermann Bondi, and Thomas Gold. In contrast it is little known that,…
In June 1930 Einstein visited Cambridge where he stayed with Eddington who had just shown that Einstein's supposedly static universe of 1917 was not stable. This forced Einstein to rethink his cosmology. He spent January and February 1931…
We present a translation and analysis of a cosmic model published by Einstein in 1931. The paper, which is not widely known, features a model of a universe that undergoes an expansion followed by a contraction, quite different to his static…
The recent discovery that Einstein once attempted - and quickly abandoned - a steady-state model of the expanding universe sheds new light on his philosophical journey from static to dynamic cosmologies.
Before the establishment of the hot Big Bang scenario as the modern paradigm of cosmology, it faced several early competitors : the so-called stationary cosmological models. There were truly plural and independent approaches incorporating…
We present a historical review of Einstein's 1917 paper 'Cosmological Considerations in the General Theory of Relativity' to mark the centenary of a key work that set the foundations of modern cosmology. We find that the paper followed as a…
In 1917 Einstein initiated modern cosmology by postulating, based on general relativity, a homogeneous, static, spatially curved universe. To counteract gravitational contraction he introduced the cosmological constant. In 1922 Alexander…
This article presents a brief review of some historical and philosophical aspects of Einstein's 1917 paper 'Cosmological Considerations in the General Theory of Relativity', a landmark work that denoted the starting point of modern…
We present a first English translation and analysis of a little-known review of relativistic cosmology written by Albert Einstein in late 1932. The article, which was published in 1933 in a book of Einstein papers translated into French,…
In this letter we will revise the steps followed by A. Einstein when he first wrote on cosmology from the point of view of the general theory of relativity. We will argue that his insightful line of thought leading to the introduction of…
We present some historical and philosophical reflections on the paper "On the Relation Between the Expansion and the Mean Density of the Universe", published by Albert Einstein and Willem de Sitter in 1932. In this famous work, Einstein and…
Soon after he proposed three classic observational tests for the general theory of relativity, Einstein realised that a consistent description of the universe as a whole provided another important challenge for the theory. In this essay, we…
Albert Einstein postulated the equivalence of energy and mass, developed the theory of special relativity, explained the photoelectric effect, and described Brownian motion in five papers, all published in 1905, 100 years ago. With these…
Einstein's blackboard is a well-known exhibit at the History of Science Museum at Oxford University. However, it is much less well known that the writing on the board provides a neat summary of a work of historic importance, Einstein's 1931…
The Einstein static universe has played a central role in a number of emergent scenarios recently put forward to deal with the singular origin of the standard cosmological model. Here we study the existence and stability of the Einstein…
It is well known that, following the emergence of the first evidence for an expanding universe, Albert Einstein banished the cosmological constant term from his cosmology. Indeed, he is reputed to have labelled the term, originally…
In 1917 Einstein introduced into his field equations a cosmological term having the cosmological constant as a coefficient, in order that the theory should yield a static universe. Einstein desired to eliminate absolute space from physics…
Since the emergence in the late 1960s of the standard hot big-bang theory, cosmology has been dominated by finite-age models. However, the rival view that the universe has existed for an indefinite time has continued to be defended by a…
The stability properties of the Einstein Static solution of General Relativity are altered when corrective terms arising from modification of the underlying gravitational theory appear in the cosmological equations. In this paper the…