Related papers: Georges Lemaitre and the Foundations of Big Bang C…
I give an epistemological analysis of the developments of relativistic cosmology from 1917 to 1966, based on the seminal articles by Einstein, de Sitter, Friedmann, Lemaitre, Hubble, Gamow and other historical figures of the field. It…
One of the greatest discoveries of modern times is that of the expanding Universe, almost invariably attributed to Hubble (1929). What is not widely known is that the original treatise by Lemaitre (1927) contained a rich fusion of both…
We provide an epistemological analysis of the developments of relativistic cosmology from 1917 to 2006, based on the seminal articles by Einstein, de Sitter, Friedmann, Lemaitre, Hubble, Gamow and other main historical figures of the field.…
Georges Lemaitre gave a theoretical proof for his 1927 doctoral thesis in astronomy that the maximum spherical radius of our Universe can be computed from first principles to be 14.2 billion light-years (Lemaitre 1927a). That estimate,…
Who discovered the expanding universe? Was it Hubble, or Lema\^itre, or was it just the end result of a long series of investigations? In this article we summarise the main steps and contributions that led to one of the most exciting…
The Hubble law, widely considered the first observational basis for the expansion of the universe, may in the future be known as the Hubble-Lema\^itre law. This is what the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union…
The 1927 discovery of the expansion of the Universe by Lemaitre was published in French in a low-impact journal. In the 1931 high-impact English translation of this article a critical equation was changed by omitting reference to what is…
Hubble's announcement of the magnitude-redshift relation \cite{Hub29} brought about a major change in our understanding of the Universe. After tracing the pre-history of Hubble's work, and the hiatus in our understanding which his…
Recently Block published an astro-ph{{http://arxiv.org/abs/1106.3928 (2011).}} insinuating that Lemaitre discovery paper of the Expanding Universe was censored prior to its translation into English and publication in the Monthly Notices of…
The recent literature of astronomy and cosmology has included a good many suggestions for "who first recognized the expansion of the universe?" with cases having been made for Lemaitre, Lundmark, de Sitter, Slipher, Shapley, Friedmann,…
After a brief introduction to the sixteenth and seventeenth century views of the Universe and the nineteenth century paradox of Olbers, we start the history of the cosmic expansion with Hubble's epochal discovery of the recession velocities…
We consider the proposal by many scholars and by the International Astronomical Union to rename Hubble's law as the Hubble-Lemaitre law. We find the renaming questionable on historic, scientific and philosophical grounds. From a historical…
Hubble's name is associated closely with the idea of an expanding universe as he discovered the relation between the recession velocity and distances of galaxies. Hubble also did a lot of pioneering work on the distribution of galaxies in…
A general-relativistic theory of cosmology, the dynamical variables of which are those of Hubble's, namely distances and redshifts, is presented. The theory describes the universe as having a three-phase evolution with a decelerating…
Based on historical facts, revisited from a present-day perspective, and on the documented opinions of the scientists involved in the discovery themselves, strong arguments are given in favor of a proposal to include prominent astronomer…
Alexander Friedmann and Georges Lema\^itre are undoubtedly the real fathers of Big Bang cosmologies. In this article I study the influences their work underwent due to some religious as well as anti-religious ideas. During his career…
This is an editorial note to accompany printing as a Golden Oldie in the Journal of General Relativity and Gravitation of the fundamental article by Georges Lema\^itre first published in French in 1927, in which the author provided the…
We analyze Hubble's approach to cosmology. In 1929 he accepted a finite expanding universe in order to explain the redshifts of distant galaxies. Later on he turned to an infinite stationary universe due to observational constraints. We…
It would be reasonable to recall some critical issues in physical cosmology development. GR was created by A. Einstein in 1915. In 1917 Einstein proposed the first (static) cosmological model. Soon after the A. Eddington proved that the…
This is an editorial note to accompany reprinting as a Golden Oldie in the Journal of General Relativity and Gravitation of the famous note by Georges Lemaitre on the quantum birth of the universe, published in Nature in 1931. We explain…