In reply to a question he recounts how he came to know about the expanding solutions proposed by Alexander Friedmann and Georges Lemaître and why he did not take them seriously.
He remained convinced that the universe is static, that is, infinite in time..
The idea that the universe had a beginning was first suggested by the general theory of relativity, completed by Albert Einstein in 1916.
Einstein's equations, which describe the structure of space and time, suggested that the universe should not be static, but that it ought to be expanding..
The idea that the universe had a beginning was first suggested by the general theory of relativity, completed by Albert Einstein in 1916.
Einstein's equations, which describe the structure of space and time, suggested that the universe should not be static, but that it ought to be expanding..
In 1917 Einstein published a paper that applied general relativity to the universe, changing our view of the cosmos forever.
Over the past century Einstein's ideas have intermingled with culture and art and shaped our world in infinite, indelible ways.
Albert Einstein once said that there are only two things that might be infinite:
Einstein soon found that, assuming a universe with a static distribution of matter (evidence to the contrary did not emerge until 1929 ), it was no easy task to obtain a satisfactory solution to the field equations for the case of the universe as a whole.
Einstein included the cosmological constant as a term in his field equations for general relativity because he was dissatisfied that otherwise his equations did not allow for a static universe:
Blackboard used by Albert Einstein on 16 May 1931 lectures at the University of Oxford
