Back in 1929, Edwin Hubble, the great American astronomer, took the globe by
surprise: While observing the spectrum lines of the light emitted by several
stars he came to the conclusion that these stars were gradually following a
path leading them…far from us. The photographs of the galaxies clearly showed
that the universe expands in space. That was a shock at a time when the universe
was considered to be a determined as well as motionless entity. After all, back
in 1917, the great Einstein had pointed out to a stock-still cosmos in his General
Theory of Relativity. He became convinced about the opposite when he paid a visit
to the Wilson observatory, where Edwin Hubble worked, and caught a glimpse of
these photos.
The “Hubble law” (that gave birth to the Big-Bang theory or the “theory
of the big explosion”) provides the conception of a universe expanding
into space balloon-wise. The further the distance of the location a celestial
body occupies from the heart of the cosmos, the higher the velocity it gains
while moving away from it. Thus, the first question posed had to do with the
rate the universe expands. By accepting the fact that the entire world of ours
set off on its course at zero time from a unique spot in space, then its expansion
should be characterized by a steady pace. Once, in fact, we are in the position
of tracing this rate of expansion, we will be able to know the age of the universe,
we will know in other words exactly when God uttered: “Let there Be Light”.
The discovery of the “Hubble constant” was not an easy case. When
observing different sections of the empyrean, more figures come up. The differences
are huge: they fluctuate between 50 and 100 and as a result the age of the
universe ranges between 20-10 billion years. The aforesaid dissension triggered
one of
the toughest disputes in the world of science. What was said amongst the astronomers
who took part in this conflict could only be equaled to what the people of
the press have been launching against each other with regard to the coverage
of war
conflicts around the world.
