Related papers: Interrogating the legend of Einstein's "Biggest Bl…
In 1956/1970 Gamow wrote that much later, when he was discussing cosmological problems with Einstein, he remarked that the introduction of the cosmological term was the "biggest blunder" he ever made in his life. But the cosmological…
Albert Einstein's real "biggest blunder" was not the 1917 introduction into his gravitational field equations of a cosmological constant term \Lambda, rather was his failure in 1916 to distinguish between the entirely different concepts of…
We present a centennial review of the history of the term known as the cosmological constant. First introduced to the general theory of relativity by Einstein in 1917 in order to describe a universe that was assumed to be static, the term…
What, if any, was Einstein's biggest mistake, the one most affecting our physics today? There is a perhaps apocryphal story, recounted by George Gamow, that he counted his cosmological constant as his biggest blunder. We now know his…
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…
The cosmological constant, usually named Lambda, was introduced by Einstein in 1917 and abandoned by him as his biggest "blunder". It currently seems to make a spectacular comeback in the framework of the new cosmological standard model.…
Contrary to popular mythology, Einstein did not invent the cosmological constant just in order construct his model universe. He discussed it earlier in "The Foundations of General Relativity" in connection with the proper structure of the…
The cosmological constant was proposed 100 years ago in order to make the model of static Universe, imagined then by most scientists, possible. Today it is the main candidate for the physical essence causing the observed accelerated…
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…
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…
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…
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 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…
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…
Nearly 4 years ago, two teams of observational astronomers reported that high-redshift Type Ia supernovae are fainter than expected in a decelerating or freely coasting universe. The radical conclusion that the universe has been…
Had Einstein followed the Bianchi differential identity for the derivation of his equation of motion for gravitation, $\Lambda$ would have emerged as a true new constant of spacetime on the same footing as the velocity of light? It is then…
Einstein introduced Cosmological Constant in his field equations in an ad hoc manner. Cosmological constant plays the role of vacuum energy of the universe which is responsible for the accelerating expansion of the universe. To give…
The objective of this paper is not simply to present an historical overview of Einstein's cosmological considerations, but to discuss the central role they played in shaping the paradigm of relativistic cosmology. This, we'll show, was a…
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…
The cosmological constant, which was introduced by Einstein a century ago to allow for a static universe, experienced a revival two decades ago under the label dark energy as a parameter to model the observed accelerated expansion of the…