Lemaître’s Big Bang
Jean-Pierre Luminet
Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille (LAM) UMR 7326
& Centre de Physique Théorique de Marseille (CPT) UMR 7332
& Observatoire de Paris (LUTH) UMR 8102
France
E-mail: [Link]@[Link]
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, Lemaître, Hubble, Gamow and other historical
figures of the field. It appears that most of the ingredients of the present-day standard cosmological model,
including the acceleration of the expansion due to a repulsive dark energy, the interpretation of the
cosmological constant as vacuum energy or the possible non-trivial topology of space, had been anticipated
by Georges Lemaître, although his articles remain mostly unquoted.
Frontiers of Fundamental Physics 14
FFP14
15-18 July 2014
Aix Marseille University (AMU) Saint-Charles Campus, Marseille
1. Introduction
The full history of Relativistic Cosmology can be divided into 6 periods:
a) An initial one (1917-1927), during which the first relativistic universe models were derived in the
absence of any observational clue.
b) A period of development (1927-1945), during which the cosmological redshifts were discovered
and interpreted in the framework of dynamical Friedmann-Lemaître solutions, whose geometrical and
mathematical aspects were investigated in more details.
c) A period of consolidation (1945-1965), during which primordial nucleosynthesis of light elements
and fossil radiation were predicted.
d) A period of acceptation (1965-1980), during which the big bang theory triumphed over the rival
steady state theory.
e) A period of enlargement (1980-1998), when high energy physics and quantum effects were
introduced for describing the early universe.
a) The present period of high precision experimental cosmology, where the fundamental
cosmological parameters are measured with a precision of a few per cent, and new problematics arise such
as the nature of the dark energy or cosmic topology.
In this communication I will concentrate on the first three periods to emphasize the prominent
contributions of Georges Lemaître, which still subtend the major features of the present-day standard big
bang model.
2. From static to dynamical universe models
In 1915, Einstein and Hilbert provided the correct field equations for a relativistic theory of gravitation,
namely general relativity. Simple cosmological solutions of Einstein's equations can be obtained by
assuming homogeneity and isotropy in the matter-energy distribution. This implies that space curvature is
on the average constant (i.e. it does not vary from point to point, although it may change with time).
The first exact solution was obtained in 1917 by Einstein himself [1], who quite naturally wished to use
his brand new theory to describe the structure of the universe as a whole. He assumed that space had a
positive curvature, namely the geometry of the hypersphere, and searched for a static solution, i.e. in
which the average matter density was constant over time, as well as the radius of the hyperspherical space.
Einstein expected that general relativity would support this view. However this was not the case. The
universe model that he initially calculated did not have a constant radius of curvature: the inexorable force
of gravity, acting on each celestial body, had a tendency to make it collapse. The only remedy was to add
an ad hoc but mathematically coherent term to his original equations. This addition corresponds to some
sort of « antigravity », which acts like a repulsive force that only makes itself felt at the cosmic scale.
Thanks to this mathematical trick, Einstein's model remained as permanent and invariable as the apparent
Universe. The new term, called the cosmological constant, has to keep exactly the same value in space
and time. Formally, it can take any value, but Einstein fitted it to a specific value λE in order to constrain
the radius RE of the hypersphere and the matter density ρ to remain constant over time. He thus derived
the relation λE = 1/RE2.
For Einstein, the fact that space had to be static was a natural assumption since at that time, no
astronomical observation indicated that stars had large velocities. In fact, his main motivation was to get a
finite space (although without a boundary) and try to fit his solution with Mach's ideas about the origin of
inertia.
In the same year, 1917, the Dutch astrophysicist Willem de Sitter [2] derived another model for a static
relativistic universe, which was very different from that of Einstein. He assumed that space was positively
curved (in fact the projective hypersphere, also called elliptic space, where the antipodal points of the
ordinary hypersphere are identified), and empty (in other words, the matter density is zero). As a
counterpart, in the absence of matter and therefore of gravity, only a cosmological constant could
determine the curvature of space, through the relation λ = 3/R2. A strange consequence was that, although
the hyperspherical space was assumed to be static (i.e. R = constant), the spatial separation between any
two test particles had to increase with time. This meant that the cosmological constant has a particular
influence on the structure of space: it generates « motion without matter ». However for Einstein, de
Sitter's solution reduced to a simple mathematical curiosity, since the real universe indeed has a mass.
In an article of 1922, entitled On the Curvature of Space [3], the Russian physicist Alexander Friedmann
took the step which Einstein had balked at : he abandoned the theory of a static universe, proposing a
dynamical alternative in which space varied with time. As he stated in the introduction, « the goal of this
notice is the proof of the possibility of a universe whose spatial curvature is constant with respect to the
three spatial coordinates and depend on time, e.g. on the fourth coordinate ». Thus Friedmann assumed a
positively curved space (the hypersphere), a time variable matter density ρ(t), and a vanishing
cosmological constant. He obtained his famous « closed universe model », with a dynamics of expansion /
contraction. Friedmann also derived solutions with non-zero cosmological constant, but pointed out that
the term was superfluous. Contrarily to a current opinion, Friedmann's work was not purely mathematical;
but he was honest enough to recognize that the available astronomical observations could not support his
model : « our information is completely insufficient to carry out numerical calculations and to distinguish
which world our universe is. [...] If we set λ = 0 and M = 5.1021 solar masses, the world period becomes
of the order 10 billion years ». It was a remarkable prediction, since the most recent estimate for the age of
the universe is 13.8 billion years.
Einstein reacted quickly to Friedmann's article. In a short Note on the work of A. Friedmann ‘On the
curvature of space’ [4], he argued that « the results concerning the non-stationary world, contained in
[Friedmann's] work, appear to me suspicious. In reality it turns out that the solution given in it does not
satisfy the field equations ». Of course Friedmann was disappointed. As he could not leave Soviet Union
to meet Einstein in Berlin, he wrote an explanatory letter and asked his friend Yuri Krutkov to convince
the famous physicist. The mission was apparently successful, since in 1923 Einstein published a still
shorter Note on the work of A. Friedmann ‘On the Curvature of Space’[5], where he recognized an error in
his calculations and concluded that « the field equations admit, for the structure of spherically symmetric
space, in addition to static solutions, dynamical solutions ». The statement did not mean that Einstein
accepted the physical pertinence of dynamical solutions. Indeed, one can find in the original manuscript
that the last sentence did not end as in the published version, but with a concluding disavowal « to which it
is hardly possible to give a physical meaning » [6].
In 1924, Friedmann studied On the possibility of a world with constant negative curvature [7]. He thus
assumed a hyperbolic geometry for space, a time varying matter density, and derived the « open »
universe model, i.e. with a dynamics of perpetual expansion. At the end of his article, he had the first
insight on a possibly non-trivial topology of space. Unfortunately, the article remained unnoticed, and
Friedmann could never gain the satisfaction to see his theoretical models confronted to cosmological
observations: he died prematurely in 1925 after an ascent on a balloon (as he was also a meteorologist).
3. Lemaître comes into play
It was precisely the time when the experimental data began to put in question the validity of static
cosmological models. For instance, in 1924 the British theorist Arthur Eddington [8] pointed out that,
among the 41 spectral shifts of galaxies as measured by Vesto Slipher, 36 were redshifted; he thus
favoured the de Sitter cosmological solution while, in 1925, his student, the young Belgian priest Georges
Lemaître, proved a linear relation distance-redshift in de Sitter's solution. Contrary to Friedmann, who
came to astronomy only three years before his premature death only, Lemaître was closely related to
astronomy all his life. He always felt the absolute need for confronting the observational facts and the
general relativity theory (adding later considerations from quantum mechanics). He was, for example,
much more aware than most of his contemporaries of the experimental status of relativity theory, and that
as early as in his years of training. Lemaître was no less a remarkable mathematician, in the domain of
fundamental mathematics (see his works on the quaternions or Störmer's problem) as well as in numerical
analysis.
The same year 1925, Edwin Hubble proved the extragalactic nature of spiral nebulae [9]. In other words,
he confirmed that there existed other galaxies like our own, and the observable universe was larger than
previously expected. More important, the radiation from the faraway galaxies was systematically
redshifted, which, interpreted as a Doppler effect, suggested that they were moving away from us at great
speed. How was it possible?
It was Lemaître who solved the puzzle. In his 1927 seminal paper Un univers homogène de masse
constante et de rayon croissant, rendant compte de la vitesse radiale des nébuleuses extragalactiques,
published (obviously in French) in the Annales de la Société Scientifique de Bruxelles [10], Lemaître
calculated the exact solutions of Einstein's equations by assuming a positively curved space (with elliptic,
i.e. non simply-connected, topology), time varying matter density and pressure, and a non-zero
cosmological constant. He obtained a model with perpetual accelerated expansion, in which he adjusted
the value of the cosmological constant such as the radius of the hyperspherical space R(t) constantly
increased from the radius of the Einstein's static hypersphere RE at t = – ∞. Therefore there was no past
singularity and no « age problem ». The great novelty was that Lemaître provided the first interpretation
of cosmological redshifts in terms of space expansion, instead of a real motion of galaxies: space was
constantly expanding and consequently increased the apparent separations between galaxies. This idea
proved to be one of the most significant discoveries of the century.
Using the available astronomical data of the time, Lemaître provided the explicit relation of
proportionality between the apparent recession velocity and the distance : « Utilisant les 42 nébuleuses
extra-galactiques figurant dans les listes de Hubble et de Strömberg, et tenant compte de la vitesse propre
du Soleil, on trouve une distance moyenne de 0,95 millions de parsecs et une vitesse radiale de 600 km/s,
soit 625 km/s à 106 parsecs. Nous adopterons donc R'/R = v/rc = 0,68.10-27 cm-1 (Eq. 24) ». Eq. 24 is
exactly what would be called later the Hubble's law.
The fundamental significance of Lemaître’s work remained unnoticed. Eddington, his former mentor to
whom Lemaître had sent a copy, did not react. When Lemaître met Einstein for the first time at the 1927
Solvay Conference, the famous physicist made favourable technical remarks, but concluded by saying that
« from the physical point of view, that appeared completely abominable » [11]. Einstein's response to
Lemaître shows the same unwillingness to change his position that characterized his former replies to
Friedmann: he accepted the mathematics, but not a physically expanding universe.
In 1929, H. P. Robertson [12] mathematically derived the metrics for all spatially homogeneous universes,
but did not realize their physical meaning (his compatriot A. Walker did the same job in 1936, so that in
the United States, the Friedmann-Lemaître solutions became unduly called the Robertson-Walker models)
Also in 1929, Hubble [13] published the experimental data showing a linear velocity-distance relation v =
Hr with H = 600 km/s/Mpc. This law was strictly identical to Lemaître's Eq.24, with almost the same
proportionality factor, but Hubble did not make the link with expanding universe models. In fact Hubble
never read the Lemaître's paper; he interpreted the galaxy redshifts as a pure Doppler effect (due to a
proper velocity of galaxies), instead of as an effect of space expansion. However, over the course of the
1920's, spiral galaxies were discovered with redshifts greater than 0,1, which implied recession velocities
as large as 30,000 km/s. In 1931, in a letter to de Sitter, Hubble expressed his inability to find a theoretical
explanation: « we use the term ‘apparent velocities’ in order to emphasize the empirical features of the
correlation. The interpretation, we feel, should be left to you and the very few others who are competent to
discuss the matter with authority. » Also he was not aware that the proportionality factor between redshift
and distance, wrongly named the « Hubble constant », was not a constant since it varies with time. Thus it
is quite erroneous to claim, as it is often the case, that Hubble is the « father » of the big bang theory. In
his popular book of 1936, The realm of nebulae [14], the great astronomer honestly recognizes that « the
present author is chiefly an observer » and, on the 202 pages of the book, the theoretical interpretation of
observations fills only one page (p. 198). Hubble makes reference to Friedmann, Robertson and Milne
(who tried to build a Newtonian, non relativistic cosmology), but not to Lemaître.
In 1930, Eddington re-examined Einstein's static model and discovered that, like a pen balanced on its
point, it is unstable: with the least perturbation, it begins either expanding or contracting. Thus he called
for new searches in order to explain the recession velocities in terms of dynamical space models. Lemaître
recalled him that he had already solved the problem in his 1927 article. Eddington, who had not read the
paper at the right time, made apologies and promoted the Lemaître's model of expanding space. A new
opportunity for the recognition of Lemaître's model arose early in 1930. A discussion between Eddington
and De Sitter took place at a meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society in London. They did not know
how to interpret the data on the recession velocities of galaxies. Eddington suggested that the problem
could be due to the fact that only static models of the universe were hitherto considered, and called for
new searches in order to explain the recession velocities in terms of dynamical space models [15].
Having read the report of the meeting of London, Lemaître understood that Eddington and De Sitter posed
a problem that he had solved three years earlier. He thus wrote to Eddington to remind him about his
communication of 1927 and requested him to transmit a copy to de Sitter. Eddington was somewhat
embarrassed. He made apologies and published an important article [16] in which he re-examined the
Einstein static model and discovered that, like a pen balanced on its point, it was unstable: any slight
disturbance in the equilibrium would start the increase of the radius of the hypersphere; thus he adopted
Lemaître's model of the expanding universe - which will be henceforward referred to as the Eddington-
Lemaître model.
Eventually, Eddington sponsored the English translation of the 1927 Lemaître's article for publication in
the M.N.R.A.S. [17]. An intriguing discrepancy between the original French article and its English
translation had already been quoted by various authors (e.g. [18]): the important paragraph discussing the
observational data and eq. (24) where Lemaître gave the relation of proportionality between the recession
velocity and the distance (in which the determination of the constant that later became known as Hubble's
constant appears) was replaced by a single sentence: « From a discussion of available data, we adopt R'/R
= 0,68 x 10-27 cm-1. » It was found curious that the crucial paragraphs assessing the Hubble law were
dropped, so that Lemaître was never recognized as the discoverer of the expansion of the universe. De
facto Lemaître was eclipsed and multitudes of textbooks proclaim Hubble as the discoverer of the
expanding universe, although Hubble himself never believed in such an explanation.
Suddenly, in 2011, a burst of accusations has flared up against Hubble, from the suspicion that a
censorship was exerted either on Lemaître by the editor of the M.N.R.A.S. [19] or on the editor by Hubble
himself [20] – suspicion based on the « complex personality » of Hubble, who strongly desired to be
credited with determining the Hubble constant. The controversy was ended [21] with the help of the
Archives Lemaître at Louvain and the Archives of the Royal Astronomical Society: Lemaître himself
translated his article, and he chose to delete several paragraphs and notes without any external pressure!
On the contrary, he was encouraged to add comments on the subject; but the Belgian scientist, who had
indeed new ideas, preferred to publish them in a separate article, published in the same issue of
M.N.R.A.S.
4. From the Primeval atom to the Hot Big Bang model
Thus, at the beginning of 1931, the expansion of space appeared to be the only coherent explanation to
account for the astronomical observations. But the same year when his vision of a dynamic universe was
to be accepted by the scientific community, including Eddington, de Sitter and Einstein, Lemaître dared to
make an even more outrageous assumption: if the universe is expanding now, must it not have been much
smaller and denser at some time in the past? In The Expanding Universe [22], he assumed a positively
curved space (with elliptic topology), time-varying matter density and pressure, and a cosmological
constant such that, starting from a singularity, the Universe first expands, then passes through a phase of
« stagnation » during which its radius coasts that of the Einstein's static solution, then starts again in
accelerated expansion. This « hesitating model » solved the age problem and provided enough time to
form galaxies: « I am led to come around to a solution of the equation by Friedmann where the radius of
space starts from zero with an infinite speed, slows and passes by the unstable equilibrium [...] before
expanding once again at accelerated speed. It is this period of slowing which seems to me to have played
one of the most important roles in the formation of the galaxies and stars. It is obviously essentially
connected to the cosmological constant ». Lemaître introduced the revolutionary concept of the « Primeval
Atom »: in the distant past the universe must have been so condensed that it was a single entity, which he
envisaged as a « quantum of pure energy », referring to the then new discipline of quantum physics. And
he poetically described the birth of the Universe: « The atom-world was broken into fragments, each
fragment into still smaller pieces [...] The evolution of the world can be compared to a display of
fireworks that has just ended: some few red wisps, ashes and smoke. Standing on a cooled cinder, we see
the slow fading of the suns, and we try to recall the vanishing brilliance of the origin of the worlds ».
In this Lemaître's annus mirabilis, the short note The beginning of the world from the point of view of
quantum theory, published in Nature [23], can be considered as the chart of the modern big bang theory.
Trying to find a link between nebulae and atoms, he applied the latest knowledge about particles and
radioactivity: « A comprehensive history of the universe ought to describe atoms in the same way as stars
[...] In atomic processes, the notions of space and time are no more than statistical notions: they fade out
when applied to individual phenomena involving but a small number of quanta. If the world has begun
with a single quantum, the notions of space and time would altogether fail to have any sense at the
beginning and would only begin to get some sensible meaning when the original quantum would have
been divided in a sufficient number of quanta. If this suggestion is correct, the beginning of the world
happened a little before the beginning of space and time. Such a beginning of the world is far enough from
the present order of nature to be not at all repugnant. » The radical innovation introduced by Lemaître thus
consisted in linking the structure of the universe at large scales with the intimate nature of the atoms, in
other words in relating the early universe to quantum mechanics.
Other scientists very poorly received this idea. The fact that Lemaître was a mathematician, allied to his
religious convictions (he had been ordained as a priest in 1923), no doubt added to their natural resistance
towards the instigation of a new world view. According to Eddington, « the notion of a beginning of the
world is repugnant to me », while Einstein considered the primeval atom hypothesis « inspired by the
Christian dogma of creation, and totally unjustified from the physical point of view ».
This was an unfair prejudice, because for Lemaître, as he expressed several times, the physical beginning
of the world was quite different from the metaphysical notion of creation. And for the priest-physicist,
science and religion corresponded to separate levels of understanding. It is interesting to point out that the
manuscript (typed) version of Lemaître's article, preserved in the Archives Lemaître at the Université of
Louvain, ended with a sentence crossed out by Lemaître himself and which, therefore, was never
published. Lemaître initially intended to conclude his letter to Nature by « I think that every one who
believes in a supreme being supporting every being and every acting, believes also that God is essentially
hidden and may be glad to see how present physics provides a veil hiding the creation ». This well
reflected his deep theological view of a hidden God, not to be found as the Creator in the beginning of the
universe. But before sending his paper to the journal, Lemaître probably realized that such a reference to
God could mislead the readers and make them think that his hypothesis gave support to the Christian
notion of God. Unfortunately, it is precisely what they did.
Einstein had also a bad opinion of the cosmological constant, that he considered as the « greatest blunder
of his life ». It is probably the reason why, in the new relativistic model that he proposed in 1932 with de
Sitter [24] - a Euclidean model with uniform density that expanded eternally - the term disappeared. The
authors did not even make reference to Friedmann and Lemaître's works, and after that, Einstein forgave
research in cosmology...
Unfortunately, due to Einstein's authority, this over-simplified solution became the standard model of
cosmology for the next 60 years. However Lemaître kept his original views. In 1933 he published another
fundamental article about cosmology, galaxy formation, gravitational collapse and singularities [25]. In
that paper of 1933, Lemaître found a new solution of Einstein's equations, known as the « Lemaître-
Tolman » model, which is more and more frequently used today for considering structure formation and
evolution in the real Universe within the exact (i.e. non-perturbative) Einstein theory. In the less known
Evolution of the expanding universe published in 1934 [26], he had a first intuition of a cosmic
background temperature at a few Kelvins: « If all the atoms of the stars were equally distributed through
space there would be about one atom per cubic yard, or the total energy would be that of an equilibrium
radiation at the temperature of liquid hydrogen. » He also interpreted for the first time the cosmological
constant as vacuum energy: « The theory of relativity suggests that, when we identify gravitational mass
and energy, we have to introduce a constant. Everything happens as though the energy in vacuo would be
different from zero. In order that motion relative to vacuum may not be detected, we must associate a
pressure p = –ρc2 to the density of energy ρc2 of vacuum. This is essentially the meaning of the
cosmological constant λ which corresponds to a negative density of vacuum ρ0 according to ρ0 = λc2/4πG
~ 10-27 [Link]-3
». Such a result will be rediscovered only in 1967 by Sakharov [27] on the basis of
quantum field theory, and is now considered as one of the major solutions of the so-called « dark energy
problem ».
By 1950, when Lemaître published a summary, in English, of his theory, entitled The Primeval Atom: An
Essay on Cosmogony [28], it was thoroughly unfashionable. Two years previously the rival theory of a
« steady state » universe, supported principally by Thomas Gold, Hermann Bondi and Fred Hoyle[29],
had met with widespread acclaim. Their argument was that the universe had always been and would
always be as it is now, that is was eternal and unchanging. In order to obtain what they wanted, they
assumed an infinite Euclidean space, filled with a matter density constant in space and time, and a new
« creation field » with negative energy, allowing for particles to appear spontaneously from the void in
order to compensate the dilution due to expansion. Seldom charitable towards his scientific adversaries,
Fred Hoyle made fun of Lemaître by calling him « the big bang man ». In fact he used for the first time
the expression « big bang » in 1948, during a radio interview.
The term, isolated from its pejorative context, became part of scientific parlance thanks to a Russian-born
American physicist George Gamow, a former student of Alexander Friedmann. Hoyle therefore
unwittingly played a major part in popularizing a theory he did not believe in; he even brought grist to the
mill of big bang theory by helping to resolve the question why the universe contained so many chemical
elements. Claiming that all the chemical elements were formed in stellar furnaces, he was contradicted by
Gamow and his collaborators[30]. The latter took advantage of the fact that the early universe should have
been very hot. Assuming a primitive mixture of nuclear particles called Ylem, a Hebrew term referring to a
primitive substance from which the elements are supposed to have been formed, they were able to explain
the genesis of the lightest nuclei (deuterium, helium, and lithium) during the first three minutes of the
Universe, at an epoch when the cosmic temperature reached 10 billion degrees. Next they predicted that,
at a later epoch, when the Universe had cooled to a few thousand degrees, it suddenly became transparent
and allowed light to escape for the first time. Alpher and Hermann [31] calculated that one should today
receive an echo of the big bang in the form of blackbody radiation at a fossil temperature of about 5 K.
Their prediction did not cause any excitement. They refined their calculations several times until 1956,
without causing any more interest; no specific attempt at detection was undertaken.
In the middle of the 1960's, at Princeton University, the theorists Robert Dicke and James Peebles studied
oscillatory universe models in which a closed universe in expansion-contraction, instead of being
infinitely crushed in a big crunch, passes through a minimum radius before bouncing into a new cycle.
They calculated that such a hot bounce would cause blackbody radiation detectable today at a temperature
of 10 K. It was then that they learned that radiation of this type had just been detected, at the Bell
Company laboratories in New Jersey. There, the engineers Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson had been
putting the finishing touches on a radiometer dedicated to astronomy, and they had found a background
noise that was higher than expected. After subtracting the antenna noise and absorption by the atmosphere,
there remained an excess of 3.5 K. This background noise had to be of cosmic origin: it was the fossil
radiation. The teams of the Bell Company and Princeton University published their articles separately in
the same issue of July 1965 of the Astrophysical Journal [32]. Penzias and Wilson only gave the results of
their measurements, while Dicke, Peebles, Roll and Wilkinson gave their cosmological interpretation.
None of them mentioned the predictions of Alpher and Hermann, still less those of Lemaître. The latter
died in 1966, a few weeks after his assistant informed him about the discovery of the fossil radiation
(Lemaître is supposed to have commented « I am glad now, we have the proof »). Gamow also died in
1968 without being recognized for his predictions. Alpher and Herman were almost forgotten. Penzias and
Wilson gained the Nobel Prize in physics in 1978. Nevertheless, at the moment of their discovery, they
believed instead in the theory of continuous creation, rival to that of the big bang, while their detection of
the fossil radiation practically signalled the death sentence of the steady state model.
After half a century of rejection, Lemaître's primeval atom, in the guise of the catchphrase « big bang
theory », had at last been accepted by theoretical physicists.
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