“It was early 1932, when Einstein and I both were at the California Institute of Technology in Pasedena, and we just decided to look for a simple relativistic model that agreed reasonably well with the known observational data, namely, the Hubble recession rate and the mean density of matter in the universe. So we took the space curvature to be zero and also the cosmological constant and the pressure term to be zero, and then it follows straightforwardly that the density is proportional to the square of the Hubble constant. It gives a value for the density that is high, but not impossibly high. That's about all there was to it. It was not an important paper, although Einstein apparently thought that it was. He was pleased to have a simple model with no cosmological constant. That's it.”

As quoted by Helge Kragh, Masters of the Universe: Conversations with Cosmologists of the Past (2014)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "It was early 1932, when Einstein and I both were at the California Institute of Technology in Pasedena, and we just dec…" by Willem de Sitter?
Willem de Sitter photo
Willem de Sitter 44
Dutch cosmologist 1872–1934

Related quotes

Frank Wilczek photo
Willem de Sitter photo
Willem de Sitter photo
Willem de Sitter photo
Willem de Sitter photo
Willem de Sitter photo
Willem de Sitter photo
Carl Sagan photo

“This is Phobos… Its mean density is known, and it is consistent with organic matter. Deimos… same story.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God (2006)

Willem de Sitter photo
Willem de Sitter photo

Related topics