The Rise of Big Bang Models, from Myth to Theory and Observations

2007/04/26 by Jean‐Pierre Luminet, Jean-Pierre Luminet, Luminet, Jean-Pierre · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #History and Developments in Astronomy #Relativity and Gravitational Theory #astro-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.0704.3579

15 pages, pdf only. Invited talk at conference "Antropogenesi : Dall'energia al fenomeno umano", 19-21 october, Portogruaro (Italy). To appear in Proceedings, eds. A. Pavan, E. Magno

arxiv created 2007/04/26 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01

Abstract

We provide an epistemological analysis of the developments of relativistic cosmology from 1917 to 2006, based on the seminal articles by Einstein, de Sitter, Friedmann, Lemaitre, Hubble, Gamow and other main historical figures of the field. It appears that most of the ingredients of the present-day standard cosmological model, such as the accelation 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 Lemaitre, although his papers remain desperately unquoted.

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