The Blog

Albert Einstein once said, “science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind”.

It was 1916 and Albert Einstein did not like where his calculations were leading him. If his theory of General Relativity was true, it meant that the universe is not eternal but had a beginning.

Einstein’s calculations were revealing a definite beginning to all space, matter, and time. This destroyed the misconception that the universe was eternal.

Einstein later called his discovery “irritating”.

He was an unbeliever and wanted the universe to be self-existent – not reliant on any outside cause – but the universe appeared to be one giant effect.

In fact, Einstein disliked the implications of General Relativity – a theory proved accurate to the fifth decimal place.

He even introduced a cosmological constant called the “fudge factor” into his equations to show that the universe is static and to avoid an absolute beginning.

In 1919, British cosmologist Arthur Eddington conducted an experiment during the solar eclipse which confirmed that General Relativity was indeed true – the universe was not static but has a beginning.

Like Einstein, Eddington was not happy about the implications of his research.

In 1922, Russian mathematician Alexander Friedmann had officially exposed Einstein’s fudge factor as an algebraic error. Einstein divided by zero-something students even know not to do.

Willem de Sitter had found that General Relativity required the universe to be expanding.

In 1927, the expanding of the universe was actually observed by astronomer Edwin Hubble.

Personal Reflection:

How do you think people came to the conclusion that the universe is constantly expanding?