{"id":44899,"date":"2017-11-15T10:57:47","date_gmt":"2017-11-15T17:57:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=44899"},"modified":"2017-11-15T10:57:47","modified_gmt":"2017-11-15T17:57:47","slug":"newton-einstein-hubble-expanding-universe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2017\/11\/newton-einstein-hubble-expanding-universe.html","title":{"rendered":"Newton, Einstein, Hubble, and the expanding universe"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Our<\/a>
This composite color infra-red image of the center of our Milky Way galaxy reveals a new population of massive stars and new details in complex structures in the hot ionized gas swirling around the central 300 light-years. This sweeping panorama is the sharpest infra-red picture ever made of the galactic core. \u00a0(Public Domain: NASA\/ESA, Caltech, University of Massachusetts at Amherst)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

A final\u00a0reminder:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll be speaking tomorrow at 10 AM as part of the annual symposium on \u201cReason for Hope: Responding to a Secular World\u201d sponsored by BYU\u2019s Wheatley Institution. \u00a0You can find details about the conference at<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

http:\/\/reasonforhope.byu.edu<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Atop<\/a>
This dome houses the telescope used by Edwin Hubble when he discovered the general expansion of the universe.
(NASA public domain photograph)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

A paraphrase of Richard Panek, The 4% Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality<\/em> (Boston and New York: Mariner Books, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011), 59-61:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the problem: \u00a0Premise One, the universe is full of matter. \u00a0Premise Two, matter attracts other matter by means of gravity. \u00a0Conclusion: \u00a0The universe must be collapsing. \u00a0But it evidently isn\u2019t<\/em>. \u00a0So why not<\/em>?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The problem has been around for a long time. \u00a0The clergyman Richard Bentley confronted Sir Isaac Newton with it in 1692, not long after the first publication of Newton\u2019s Principia<\/em>. \u00a0And Newton acknowledged that it was a striking question.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

His argument, he replied, required \u201cthat all the particles in an infinite space should be so accurately poised one among another as to stand still in a perfect equilibrium.\u201d \u00a0A remarkable thing, he knew: \u00a0\u201cFor I reckon this as hard as to make not one needle only but an infinite number of them (so many as there are particles in an infinite space) stand accurately poised upon their points.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

But how could such remarkable equilibrium be possible? \u00a0A subsequent edition of the Principia<\/em>, responding to Rev. Bentley\u2019s\u00a0objection, included a \u201cGeneral Scholium\u201d that postulated Newton\u2019s sincere and characteristically\u00a0devout Christian answer: \u00a0It was divine providence. \u00a0\u201cAnd so that the systems of the fixed stars will not fall upon one another as a result of their gravity, he has placed them at immense distances from one another.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

But \u201cimmense distances\u201d don\u2019t actually resolve the problem. \u00a0The force of gravity would be greatly attenuated over such distances, yes, but it would still be<\/em> there. \u00a0And, of course, postulating God as the explanation didn\u2019t fit the emerging \u201cmethodological naturalism\u201d of Western science, of which Newton was a principal founder.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Moreover, over the next generations astronomers began to realize that the so-called \u201cfixed stars\u201d aren\u2019t fixed at all<\/em>. \u00a0They\u2019re in constant motion relative to one another. \u00a0So the idea that they were in perfect equilibrium became untenable.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

How to deal with this problem?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In his 1917 paper \u201cCosmological Considerations on the General Theory of Relativity,\u201d Albert Einstein inserted a \u201cfudge factor\u201d into his equation that he called lambda.<\/em> \u00a0It was intended to represent whatever it was \u2014 \u201cat present unknown\u201d \u2014 that was somehow keeping the universe from collapsing upon itself. \u00a0Rather like Newton\u2019s approach to gravity itself \u2014 mathematically describing its effects but providing no account of\u00a0its intrinsic nature\u00a0\u2014 Einstein\u00a0offered no proposal or hypothesis for what lambda<\/em> might actually be.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then came Edwin Hubble\u2019s epochal 1923 discovery of evidence suggesting that the universe isn\u2019t static at all<\/em>. \u00a0But it isn\u2019t contracting, either. \u00a0It\u2019s expanding<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Einstein,<\/a>
Left to right: Albert Einstein, Edwin Hubble, Walther Mayer, Walter S. Adams, Arthur S. King, and William W. Campbell pose in front of the 100-inch telescope dome at Mount Wilson Observatory on 29 January 1931 (The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 1931, Einstein traveled from Germany to the 100-inch telescope of Mount Wilson Observatory in the San Gabriel Mountains, located to the northeast of Pasadena, where Hubble had made his discovery. \u00a0After visiting with Hubble and reviewing the data, he discarded lambda<\/em>. \u00a0The assumption of a static universe had been, simply, false.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

A personal addendum: \u00a0I saw Mount Wilson virtually every day of my life, growing up essentially at its foot in San Gabriel, California. \u00a0Its broadcasting towers and some of its observatories are easily visible from the valley below. \u00a0I myself visited it multiple times \u2014 with my family, on school field trips, and even with a couple of girlfriends (on separate occasions!). \u00a0It was many years before I grasped\u00a0the world-historical scientific significance of the place. \u00a0To me as a school kid, it was just a chance to get out of classes.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 A final\u00a0reminder: \u00a0 I\u2019ll be speaking tomorrow at 10 AM as part of the annual symposium on \u201cReason for Hope: Responding to a Secular World\u201d sponsored by BYU\u2019s Wheatley Institution. \u00a0You can find details about the conference at \u00a0 http:\/\/reasonforhope.byu.edu \u00a0 *** \u00a0 \u00a0 A paraphrase of Richard Panek, The 4% Universe: Dark […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nNewton, Einstein, Hubble, and the expanding universe<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    A final\u00a0reminder:   I'll be speaking tomorrow at 10 AM as part of the annual symposium on "Reason for Hope: Responding to a Secular\" \/>\n<meta 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