Before the Big Bang
Einstein was not happy.
In the early years of the 20th century, he came up with his General Theory of Relativity, an important part of which was a suggested explanation of gravity.
Newton came up with the idea of gravity, but did not know what it was. Einstein was unhappy because his equations were telling him things he didn't like. Einstein believed the universe to be unchanging and eternal. His equations said that could not be the case. It had to either collapse or expand.
So, completely out of his imagination, he added a cosmic fudge factor, a force that would keep the universe static. He gave it the impressive name, Cosmological Constant, which would be represented by a capital Greek letter, lambda. As it turned out decades later, that would be useful.
Working independently, Georges LeMaitre, a senior Jesuit priest, was doing his own calculations, which told him the universe was expanding. However, he did not question his result........
© Castanet
