Comments on: Blast of Giant Atom Created Our Universe

By: Charlie

Charlie — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 23:08:09 +0000

Roger: Wow, that’s a really good description of the universe.

By: Roger

Roger — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 22:48:21 +0000

Here is the passage from Lemaitre that I sought:

“The evolution of the universe may 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 try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds.” Lemaitre, G (1951) The Primeval Atom. Van Nostrand: 78. Quoted in Harrison 2000, p. 529, and Barrow and Tipler 1986, p. 329.

By: The Complete Book of Outer Space – Part 4 « The Great Gnome Press Science Fiction Odyssey

Sat, 16 May 2009 10:27:55 +0000

[...] critic and wrote several books on the subject. He also wrote widely on stellar matters. Check out this Big Bang article he wrote back in 1932 and published in that year’s Popular Science magazine. Courtesy of the [...]

By: Roger

Roger — Sun, 03 May 2009 23:50:27 +0000

I was a boy before the CMB was discovered. Science books for boys back down dutifully mentioned Lemaitre and his Big Bang hypothesis. That Lemaitre was a Belgian priest was mentioned without comment. But when the Big Bang became ccanonical science, Lemaitre’s name faded from my reading, and the Big Bang was attributed to Friedmann took over. That is unfair; the Big Bang is Lemaitre’s brainchild. BTW, he died knowing that Penzias and Wilson had vindicated him.

It’s not just the Big Bang. Lemaitre apparently guessed right that the universe is open. He also believed that our universe is unique, so that the Big Bang is also a Creation.

I am looking for the French original which Menzel paraphrased as:

“He prefers to believe that the whole universe was born in the flash of a cosmic sky-rocket and that it will keep expanding until the showering sparks which form the stars have burned to cinders and ashes.”

If you know where Menzel took that from, Email me at jj5498@gmail.com .

By: S.O.L.A.R. » Archive » The Expanding Universe Part 1: The Big Bang

S.O.L.A.R. » Archive » The Expanding Universe Part 1: The Big Bang — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 08:43:58 +0000

[...] Donald H. Menzel, Blast of Giant Atom Created Our Universe (amazing reprint of an article first published in 1933, just 3 years after Edwin Hubble observed the redshifts of distant galaxy clusters) [...]

By: Rich Bergmann

Rich Bergmann — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 22:22:03 +0000

Read Ernest J. Sternglass’ “Before the Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe.” He is quite a proponent of Le Maitre’s primeval atom theory.

By: Gina

Gina — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 01:35:18 +0000

Beautiful!

By: Austraunatic News » Blast of Giant Atom Created Our Universe

Austraunatic News » Blast of Giant Atom Created Our Universe — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 14:22:34 +0000

[...] read more | digg story [...]

By: Catholic Priest Proposes New Model for Creation | Cosmic Variance

Catholic Priest Proposes New Model for Creation | Cosmic Variance — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 07:03:47 +0000

[...] of which springs to mind because the Modern Mechanix blog has unearthed a Popular Science article from 1932 by Donald Menzel, an astronomer at Harvard, that explains LemaÃ®tre’s ideas. (The time [...]

By: Stannous

Stannous — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 09:44:03 +0000

Fr. George Lemaitre’s struggle to convince the scientific establishment (including Einstein) is documented on this wiki page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_LemaÃ®tre

By: jayessell

jayessell — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 17:52:55 +0000

Excellent find.
I always thought it was radio astronomy which led to the theory of “The Big Bang”.
But… that’s the 1960s!

I see that even that article mentions the possibly of extra-solar habitable worlds, but not the possibility of inhabited habitable worlds.

Just when did the nebuleua graduate from ‘clouds of dust’ to ‘clouds of stars’? The 1920s?