Blog Ekkehard Friebe

by Bernard R. Bligh

A review of the historical development of cosmology suggests that there are two approaches. One starts with the special and general theories of relativity and proceeds along the lines of theoretical physics; the other takes account of the fact that the universe consists of matter and that the chemical, physical and thermodynamic properties of matter need to be considered.

The second approach is of paramount importance for two reasons; first because facts based on experiments in chemistry and physics have accumulated over two centuries and have a sound provenance, and second because thermodynamic data provide a means of doing thermodynamic calculations to test the validity of theories on the nature and origin of the universe. The thermodynamic data in question are numerical values of properties of matter such as internal energy, ionization energy and entropy.

The physical sciences cover a broad spectrum from laboratory chemical experiments to thermodynamics, theoretical physics, two theories of relativity, mathematics and much else. Mankind has built up an enormous body of knowledge but the history of the development of science has not always been as logical and straightforward as might appear from textbooks.

A chemistry student, reading about the ionic nature of salts, would never have guessed that Arrhenius was regarded as an idiot when he proposed the ionic theory, even although there was a lot of experimental data to support him. Consider also Pasteur’s discovery that crystals of optically active compounds are mirror images of each other. When asked how he discovered this, he replied, “In the fields of observation, chance favours only the prepared mind” (only he said it in French).

Another example is the theory of continental drift, which is now widely accepted, although it was dismissed out of hand for 30 years. I would like to suggest to my readers that cosmology is another feature where a wrong turning has been made. The story starts with a notable success.

The astronomer, Arthur Eddington was a Quaker and a pacifist. After the First World War he wished to bring about a reconciliation between British scientists and Germany. He knew about Einstein’s theories of relativity and he knew that the general theory, which is substantially mathematical, predicted that a ray of light passing a massive body like the sun should be deflected to a degree twice as much as that predicted by Newton’s corpuscular theory. Eddington had a flair for publicity and he persuaded the Royal Astronomical Society to finance two expeditions to observe the eclipse of the Sun in 1919. One expedition went to the island of Principe off the coast of West Africa the other went to Sobral, Brazil. During such an eclipse, rays of light from distant stars passing the sun could be observed and any deflection could be measured.

At a joint meeting of the Royal Society and The Royal Astronomical Society on 6th November 1919, Eddington dramatically unfolded the great triumph of general relativity. The next day it was in all the newspapers and Einstein became famous. Ever since then, general relativity has been a happy hunting ground for mathematicians wishing to achieve fame and fortune.

The development of this subject has led to the Hot Big Bang (HBB) theory of the origin of the universe. This has come about partly because Einstein and De Sitter showed that the equations of general relativity suggested that the universe would expand unless a “cosmological constant” was introduced. Later Einstein said that the introduction of the cosmological constant was his “biggest mistake”. At this point the theoreticians have taken a false turn.

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