The Birth of the Big Bang

Abstract

In Chap. I of his book, The Primeval Atom, Lemaître suggested that our universe is not a flat, Euclidean space (as one might presume), but rather an elliptical, non-Euclidean space. Indeed, the nebulae which populate our universe bend space in their vicinity, according to Einstein’s theory of general relativity, allowing its edges to meet up—just like the opposite edges of a mercator projection map meet up to form a single meridian. In this sense, both the surface of the earth and the space of the universe are finite yet unbounded. Now, in Chap. IV Lemaître turns to the question of cosmogony: how did the world begin? Before providing his own hypothesis, Lemaître reviews the cosmogonic theories of Buffon, Kant and Laplace. Which (if any) of these theories of cosmogony do you find most compelling? Why?

The evolution of the world does not depend solely upon the law of universal attraction.

—Georges Lemaître