Lost and found: a 1964 interview with Georges Lemaitre, the Father of the Big Bang theory

The Vlaamse Radio- en Televisieomroeporganisatie (VRT), the national public-service broadcaster for the Flemish Community of Belgium, has found in its archives an interview with Georges Lemaître that was thought to be lost. The cosmologist from Leuven was the founder of the big bang theory in the 1920s and 1930s. He was interviewed about it in 1964, but until recently it was thought that only a short excerpt had been preserved. Now the entire 20-minute interview has been found and published in the original French with Flemish subtitles. It is wonderful to listen to it! In addition, a transcript in English has now been published by the Journal for History of Astronomy.

“The Heavens Declare the Glory of God” Ps 19:1

Unfolding the Universe: The first pictures from the James Webb Telescope

Yesterday, on 12 July 2022, the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope were released These images provide us with the deepest and sharpest view of our cosmos to date, showing thousands of galaxies in clarity like never before.

James Webb first image – Galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 / Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

This image covers a patch of the sky “roughly the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length by someone standing on earth”, NASA administrator Bill Nelson said. “We are looking back at more than 13 billion years. The light that you are seeing on one of these little specks has been traveling for 13 billion years” That makes the signal we are seeing just 800 million years younger than the “Big Bang.”

Georges Lemaitre and Pope Pius XII

On 07 September 1952, Pope Pius XII gave a talk in Rome at the Assembly of the International Astronomical Union in which he did not mention any association between the Big Bang Theory and the initial fiat of creation. A few months earlier in 1951, while addressing the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, he had seemed to link the two together. In the time that passed between the two talks, Georges Lemaître had met with Pope Pius XII to discuss the difficulties and limits of associating the Big Bang Theory with the theological notion of creation.

Read more on our previous blog post and on inters.org: Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti, The Pius XII – Lemaître Affair (1951-1952) on Big Bang and Creation

Happy Birthday, Big Bang!

On 28 March 1949, the “Big Bang” got his name. Astronomer Fred Hoyle accidentally coined the name for our prevailing model of the early Universe on 28 March 1949. Defending his steady state theory on the BBC, he criticized “the hypothesis that all matter of the universe was created in one big bang.”

The hypothesis of a Big Bang goes back to Fr. Georges Lemaitre, who in 1927 imagined tracing an expanding universe backwards in time.

Picture: BBC – Fred Hoyle: an online exhibition
https://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/…/spec…/hoyle/exhibition/radio

Give Credit where credit is due!

or: Hubble Law renamed to Hubble-Lemaitre Law

In the XXX General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) that took place in August 2018 in Vienna, astronomers approved a resolution on changing the name of the Hubble Law to the Hubble-Lemaitre Law, in order to get historical facts right.

In 1927, Georges Lemaitre published his findings.  He rediscovered Friedman’s dynamic solution to Einstein’s general relativity equations that described an expanding universe. He also derived that the expansion of the universe implies the spectra of distant galaxies are redshifted by an amount proportional to their distance. Finally, he used published data on the velocities and photometric distances of galaxies to derive the rate of expansion of the universe. Written in French in a not-well known journal, his paper remained rather unknown although it took precedence over Hubble’s paper.

In 1929, Edwin Hubble provided evidence that the further away a galaxy from earth, the faster it is moving away, a property now known as “Hubble’s law”.

In 1931, on invitation by the Journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Lemaitre translated in English his original 1927 paper, the expansion rate, however, is missing. There has been some controversy whether the equations in question were censored in the English translation, but it is now established that Lemaitre himself deliberately left them out. Lemaitre’s attitude is acknowledged in the resolution: the General Assembly desires “to honour the intellectual integrity of Georges Lemaitre that made him value more the progress of science rather than his own visibility.”

It will take more time to implement the renaming, since the IAU decided that in addition to the acceptance by the General Assembly, all members will be asked to electronically vote in the last quarter of 2018 to ensure an even broader consensus.

Addendum 02 Nov 2018: Members have agreed (via e-voting) to pass the resolution to renaming the “Hubble law” as the “Hubble–Lemaître Law”.

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Sources:
Press release of the International Astronomical Union, 31 August 2018
IAU 2018, Resolution B4: the renaming of the Hubble law.
Image: Edwin Hubble and Georges Lemaître (Artist’s Illustration) on HubbleSite

More on George Lemaitre on our blog:
Georges Lemaitre – the Big Bang Cosmology and its metaphysical implications (I) and (II)

Georges Lemaitre – the Big Bang Cosmology and its metaphysical implications (II)

This is the second of two part. You can read the first part here.

Lemaitre‘s Cosmology and Stephen Gould’s NOMA

NOMA stands for Non-Overlapping Magisteria, meaning that science and religion simply should not or do not overlap. Therefore, there is only one responsible level of explanation at a given time, either the scientific one, for example, when it comes to evolution, fossils, molecular genetics, or the religious one, which helps to understand what the meaning of life is, whether there is a soul, and Heaven. (This is of course simplistic). NOMA can be criticized, just because there are overlaps, especially when it comes to us humans: just that he can think about abstract concepts such as NOMA suggests that there is something that exceeds the purely materialistic sphere of science. While Christians complain that NOMA gives science too much competence (“it is always religion that has to give way”), Atheists see in NOMA a cheap excuse to introduce a bit of religion through the back door.

While NOMA wants to achieve a mere juxtaposition, that is not one of Lemaitre’s goals. He is concerned with the clear separation of the categories “physics” (meaning all scientifically detectable things) and “meta-physics”, and both categories (or levels) must not be blurred or mixed. He is firmly anchored in the Thomistic viewpoint, which distinguishes between the first cause (God) and the second causes (the creatures in the broadest sense), which act according to their inherent (and ultimately God-given) qualities and possibilities.

Lemaitre sees both categories simultaneously present:

“Physics does not exclude Providence. Nothing happens without its order or permission, even if this gentle action is not miraculous. Evolution, whether of the universe or of the living world, could be made at random by quantum leaps or mutations. Nevertheless, this chance has, from a superior point of view, been directed towards a goal. For us Christians, it was oriented towards the appearance of life. In what was done, there was life, intelligence and life was light in man and finally in humanity by the incarnation of the Man-God: the true light that illuminated our darkness.

Chance does not exclude Providence. Perhaps chance provides the strokes mysteriously actuated by Providence.” [5]

God’s providential actions will not be rendered superfluous or non-existent due to scientific insights. But Providence remains often hidden to us, similarly as God Himself remains “a hidden God”

“Truly, you are a God who hides himself” (Is 45:15)

God is hidden behind and in His creation. He is a “hidden God”, transcending all our knowledge and cognition. “Truly, you are a God who hides himself“, as we read in Isaiah [Is 45:15].  We will find this term and concept often in Lemaitre’s writings. Already in 1931, Lemaitre writes:

“I think that everyone 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”.

Georges Lemaitre – the Big Bang Cosmology and its metaphysical implications (I)

Georges Lemaitre was astrophysicist and Catholic priest; he did not find a conflict between science and faith. He carefully distinguished between „physics“ and „metaphysics“. We can learn from him to see God’s actions as those from the “Hidden God”. Modern Cosmology does not make God redundant or degrades God to „just another actor in our cosmos”.

During the 1920ies, the Belgian astrophysicist George Lemaitre developed his cosmological theory postulating an abrupt beginning of the universe from an initial, superdense concentration of nuclear matter called the “primeval atom” that expanded rapidly building stars and galaxies. He was not only an astrophysicist – he was also a Catholic priest, ordained in 1923.

The cosmological model at the time was static, and both Albert Einstein and Arthur Eddington, Lemaitre’s teacher in Cambridge, did not like Lemaitre’s dynamic model. Eddington even said that “the notion of a beginning of the present order of Nature is repugnant to him”, as Eddington is quoted by Lemaitre in his 1931 letter to Nature [1].

Georges Lemaitre met Albert Einstein at the Solvay Conference in 1927 and presented his hypothesis to him. Albert Einstein was not impressed, but he told Lemaitre to consult Alexander Friedmann’s paper from 1922 called „Über die Krümmung des Raums“ (On the curvature of space) where he described the possibility of an expanding universe based on General Relativity. Friedmann had been a Russian physicist and mathematician who had died in 1925. Lemaitre had similar thoughts and had even progressed further on than Alexander Friedmann.

In 1929, Edwin Hubble did demonstrate that the galaxies were moving further apart over time, but he did not yet conclude on an expanding universe.

Einstein had accepted the idea of an expanding universe but he remained reluctant to accept an initial singularity, a beginning of the universe. Therefore, Einstein famous exclamation: “This is the most beautiful and satisfactory explanation of creation to which I have ever listened” at Caltech, Pasadena in 1933, might have been a bit ironical.

The name “Big Bang” that we use today was coined by Fred Hoyle, and was also meant ironically: he was convinced of a static universe and did not like Lemaitre’s ideas that reminded him too much of a Creator-God.

Nonetheless, the new theory gained influence in the following years. It was not until 1964/1965, though, that the detection of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) provided experimental proof. Lemaitre was satisfied to learn of this discovery a few months prior to his death, when he was already seriously ill.

The Big Bang theory proposes a beginning of our Universe: an idea that suits theists well, and Christians are inclined to say: “OK, this IS the moment of creation!” But is this correct?

Arthur S. Eddington and the Bending of Light

Arthur S. Eddington (28 December 1882–22 November 1944) was an English astrophysicist. One of his major findings was the Bending of Light: Light bends in the presence of bodies with large masses. The amount of this shift had been calculated by Albert Einstein as double the value accounted for by Newton’s theory of gravitation.

During a solar eclipse on 29 May 1919, Eddington and his team confirmed the deflection of light by seeing the outward shift of the stars (as shown below) and found values near those predicted by Einstein. This provided evidence for the theory of General Relativity.

Eddington was also known for developing the first cosmological models that used the theory of relativity, and he contributed significantly to studies on the thermodynamic structure of the stars. He attempted to elaborate a unified theory capable of joining microphysics and macrophysics, seeking to obtain fundamental physical constants through deduction.

Outside of mathematical physics, Eddington wrote on scientific epistemology, developing a neo-Kantian inspired deductive-idealist vision of the scientific method. In his work “The Nature of the Physical World” he wrote:

“It is essential to our faith in a theory that its predictions should accord with observation, unless a reasonable explanation of the discrepancy is forthcoming, so that it is highly important that Einstein’s law should have survived these delicate astronomical tests in which Newton’s law just failed. But our main reason for rejecting Newton’s law is not its imperfect accuracy as shown by these tests; it is because it does not contain the kind of information about Nature that we want to know now that we have an ideal before us which was not in Newton’s mind at all. We can put it this way. Astronomical observations show that within certain limits of accuracy both Einstein’s and Newton’s laws are true. we are confirming a statement as to what the appearances would be when referred to one particular space-time frame. No reason is given for attaching any fundamental importance to this frame. In confirming (approximately) Einstein’s law, we are confirming a statement about the absolute properties of the world, true for all space-time frames. For those who are trying to get beneath the appearances, Einstein’s statement necessarily supersedes Newton’s; it extracts from the observations a result with physical meaning as opposed to a mathematical curiosity.” [1]

Eddington was also a teacher of Georges Lemaître (1894–1966), but did not like Lemaitre’s “theory of the Primeval Atom” (we call it today Big Bang theory) as he wrote in Nature in 1931. Lemaitre provided an answer in the article: “The Beginning of the World from the Point of View of Quantum Theory.” Lemaitre started with these words:

“Sir Arthur Eddington states that, philosophically, the notion of a beginning of the present order of Nature is repugnant to him. I would rather be inclined to think that the present state of quantum theory suggests a beginning of the world very different from the present order of Nature. Thermodynamical principles from the point of view of quantum theory may be stated as follows : (1) Energy of constant total amount is distributed in discrete quanta. (2) The number of distinct quanta is ever increasing. If we go back in the course of time we must find fewer and fewer quanta, until we find all the energy of the universe packed in a few or even in a unique quantum…” [2]

A previous post on this blog: Arthur S Eddington on Atheists and Scotsmen

Sources:
[1] Eddington, Arthur S. The Nature of the Physical World: Gifford Lectures of 1927. Ed. H.G. Callaway (Newsastle, GB: Cambridge Scholars, 2014), 126-127.
[2] Lemaitre, Georges. “The Beginning of the World from the Point of View of Quantum Theory.” Nature 127, 706 (9 May 1931). Image: wikipedia

Further recommended reading:
Matthew Stanley, The man who made Einstein world-famous, BBC,  24 May 2019

Fr. Georges Lemaître on the ‘Hidden God,’ Chance and Providence

On 20 June 1966, Georges Lemaître (1894–1966) passed away in Leuven, Belgium.

He was a Belgian Catholic priest, mathematician and astronomer, known for his theory of the primeval atom and the expanding universe, the Big Bang theory.

While a graduate student at Cambridge University, he worked under Sir Arthur Eddington (1882–1944). During his career he also carried out research at the Harvard Observatory and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and also taught on the faculties of the Catholic University of America (first semester, 1933) and the University of Notre Dame (1936).

He was elected member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 1937, and served as the president of the academy from March 1960 until his death.

Quote from Lemaître in the Revue des Questions Scientifiques (1967).

« La physique n’exclut pas la providence. Rien n’arrive sans son ordre ou sa permission, même si cette action suave n’a rien de miraculeux. L’évolution, que ce soit celle de l’univers ou du monde vivant, a pu se faire au hasard des sauts quantiques ou des mutations. Néanmoins, ce hasard a pu d’un point de vue supérieur être orienté vers un but. Pour nous chrétien, il a été orienté vers l’apparition de la vie. En ce qui a été fait, il y avait de la vie, de l’intelligence et la vie était lumière chez l’homme et enfin dans l’humanité par l’incarnation de l’Homme-Dieu : la vraie lumière qui a illuminé nos ténèbres. Le hasard n’exclut pas la Providence. Peut-être le hasard fournit-il les touches qu’actionne mystérieusement la Providence. »

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Referenced:
—Lemaître, « L’expansion de l’Univers: Réponses à des questions posées par Radio Canada le 15 avril 1966 », Revue des Questions Scientifiques, t. CXXXVIII (5e série, t. XXVIII), avril 1967, n°2, pp. 153-162, version revue et adaptée par O. Godart. In: Dominique Lambert, “Georges Lemaître: Repères Biographiques.” Revue des Questions Scientifiques, 2012, 183 (4) : 1-59

Pope Francis to Scientists on Lemaitre, Einstein and Aquinas

Dear friends,

I extend a heartfelt welcome to you all, and I thank Brother Guy Consolmagno for his kind words.

The issues you have been addressing during these days at Castel Gandolfo are of particular interest to the Church, because they have to do with questions that concern us deeply, such as the beginning of the universe and its evolution, and the profound structure of space and time, to name but a few.  It is clear that these questions have a particular relevance for science, philosophy, theology and for the spiritual life.  They represent an arena in which these different disciplines meet and sometimes clash.

As both a Catholic priest and a cosmologist, Msgr. Georges Lemaître knew well the creative tension between faith and science, and always defended the clear methodological distinction between the fields of science and theology.  While integrating them in his own life, he viewed them as distinct areas of competence. That distinction, already present in Saint Thomas Aquinas, avoids a short-circuiting that is as harmful to science as it is to faith.

Before the immensity of space-time, we humans can experience awe and a sense of our own insignificance, as the Psalmist reminds us:  “What is man that you should keep him in mind, the son of man that you care for him?” (Ps 8:5). As Albert Einstein loved to say: “One may say the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.” The existence and intelligibility of the universe are not a result of chaos or mere chance, but of God’s Wisdom, present “at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old” (Prov. 8:22).

I am deeply appreciative of your work, and I encourage you to persevere in your search for truth. For we ought never to fear truth, nor become trapped in our own preconceived ideas, but welcome new scientific discoveries with an attitude of humility. As we journey towards the frontiers of human knowledge, it is indeed possible to have an authentic experience of the Lord, one which is capable of filling our hearts.

Greeting Address to the participants of the Conference organized by the Vatican Observatory,  Friday, 12 May 2017

Source: Vatican homepage