Einstein's Biggest Blunder (2000)

BBC Equinox

When Einstein introduced the cosmological constant in his theory of general relativity he did so because he was guided by the paradigm of the day that the universe was static (i.e. neither contracting nor expanding.) The cosmological constant provided a way of balancing the gravitational contraction caused by matter. It was latter discovered by Edwin Hubble that other galaxies appear to be receding away from us, that the universe was actually expanding. When Einstein heard and fully appreciated these observations, he declared that the inclusion of the cosmological constant was his "biggest blunder."Source: http://super.colorado.edu/~michaele/Lambda/blund.html
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Documentary Description


According to Einstein's calculations, there is so much matter in the universe that it ought to be collapsing inwards under its own weight. Since, so far as he could see, the universe was fairly static, he came up with the cosmological constant: a rather vague and mysterious quantity of energy which had got into the universe somewhere along the way and was keeping it all in one piece.



At the dawn of a new century, a new theory is being born. It threatens to demolish the foundations of 20th century physics. Its authors are two of the world's leading cosmologists. If they're right, Einstein was wrong. It all began when Andy Albrecht and Joao Magueijo met at a conference in America in 1996.



This program began from Newtonian view of the universe then takes you through the General Relativity and the Flatness problem. This leads to the Horizon problem and its solution, the Inflation theory. However modern astronomy doesn't stop here, the Inflation theory has its flaw too, and what happened before the big bang? This can all be answered by changing one thing, the one thing no body dare to question until now.

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