Tram Town
Saturday, June 24, 2006
| Category: Science Here's an interesting micro-bio of Georges Lemaître, "a first-rate mathematician and physicist, [and] also a diocesan Catholic priest". Lemaître is credited with being the Father of the Big Bang theory (Fred Hoyle once disparagingly referred to him as 'the big bang man'), but in fact, his contribution to the theory was almost an afterthought to his real achievement. Lemaître was in essence the first cosmologist, meaning, the first physicist not only conversant with Einstein's field equations of general relativity, but also the first to deliberately train himself in astronomy and astrophysics to find proof of what the equations suggested to him -- that the universe could be dynamic, expanding.Read it, Jack! |
