WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.240 In 1951, Pope Pius XII gave this highly publicized 00:00:05.240 --> 00:00:07.620 speech to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. 00:00:07.700 --> 00:00:11.339 Right. And he basically stands up and proudly 00:00:11.339 --> 00:00:14.460 declares to the world that modern physics had 00:00:14.460 --> 00:00:17.120 finally proven the Christian doctrine of creation 00:00:17.120 --> 00:00:19.600 out of nothing. A huge moment for the church. 00:00:19.699 --> 00:00:22.780 Oh, massive PR victory. Yeah. The Pope claimed 00:00:22.780 --> 00:00:25.579 that the Big Bang was the literal scientific 00:00:25.579 --> 00:00:28.219 observation of the exact moment God said, let 00:00:28.219 --> 00:00:31.489 there be light. Yeah. But the wild thing is the 00:00:31.489 --> 00:00:33.649 guy who actually invented the Big Bang Theory 00:00:33.649 --> 00:00:35.590 was sitting right there in the audience. And 00:00:35.590 --> 00:00:38.429 he was not happy. No, he was absolutely horrified 00:00:38.429 --> 00:00:40.469 because that guy wasn't just a brilliant theoretical 00:00:40.469 --> 00:00:43.070 physicist. He was a Catholic priest. Exactly. 00:00:43.289 --> 00:00:45.369 And he was about to do the unthinkable walk right 00:00:45.369 --> 00:00:47.350 up to the head of his own church and tell the 00:00:47.350 --> 00:00:49.969 pope to back off. It's a moment that perfectly 00:00:49.969 --> 00:00:52.509 captures one of the most remarkable yet somehow 00:00:52.509 --> 00:00:55.509 historically overshadowed figures in 20th century 00:00:55.509 --> 00:00:58.500 science. Welcome to today's Deep Dive. Our mission 00:00:58.500 --> 00:01:01.000 today is to explore the life of Georges Lamentre. 00:01:01.460 --> 00:01:03.679 We're drawing from a really comprehensive Wikipedia 00:01:03.679 --> 00:01:08.579 article detailing his life, his work, and his 00:01:08.579 --> 00:01:12.049 legacy. Quite a legacy. Truly. The goal for you 00:01:12.049 --> 00:01:14.349 listening today is to help us unravel the mechanics 00:01:14.349 --> 00:01:16.950 of his genius. Like, how does a guy navigate 00:01:16.950 --> 00:01:19.390 the absolute highest echelons of theoretical 00:01:19.390 --> 00:01:22.930 physics and the deep spiritual commitments of 00:01:22.930 --> 00:01:25.549 the Catholic priesthood without ever compromising 00:01:25.549 --> 00:01:27.510 either? Right, because we're so used to seeing 00:01:27.510 --> 00:01:30.650 faith and empirical science as these mortal enemies, 00:01:30.650 --> 00:01:33.569 you know? Yeah. Fighting for the exact same territory. 00:01:33.730 --> 00:01:36.670 Exactly. But spoiler alert. He is responsible 00:01:36.670 --> 00:01:39.109 for the most famous law in astronomy and the 00:01:39.109 --> 00:01:42.030 most famous term in cosmology. Even if the history 00:01:42.030 --> 00:01:44.450 books haven't always given him the credit. Yeah, 00:01:44.650 --> 00:01:46.890 to really grasp the physics he eventually proposed, 00:01:47.290 --> 00:01:49.030 we kind of have to look at the psychological 00:01:49.030 --> 00:01:51.730 foundation he built first. Makes sense. His defining 00:01:51.730 --> 00:01:53.950 traits, this immense mathematical discipline 00:01:53.950 --> 00:01:56.189 and just a fierce independence from authority, 00:01:56.670 --> 00:01:58.430 they were actually forged in the trenches of 00:01:58.430 --> 00:02:00.750 World War I, way before he ever looked at a telescope. 00:02:00.810 --> 00:02:04.150 Wow, WWI. Yeah, he was born in Charleroi, Belgium 00:02:04.150 --> 00:02:07.609 in 1894, and he was actually studying engineering 00:02:07.609 --> 00:02:10.469 when the war broke out in 1914. So he just dropped 00:02:10.469 --> 00:02:12.810 everything. Pretty much. He volunteered for the 00:02:12.810 --> 00:02:15.129 Belgian army and was assigned to the artillery. 00:02:15.650 --> 00:02:17.990 OK, let's unpack this, because artillery isn't 00:02:17.990 --> 00:02:20.530 just, you know, loading a cannon and pulling 00:02:20.530 --> 00:02:23.830 a lanyard. Far from it. It's entirely about applied 00:02:23.830 --> 00:02:26.009 mathematics. You're dealing with ballistics. 00:02:26.360 --> 00:02:29.159 Calculating trajectories based on payload weight, 00:02:29.699 --> 00:02:31.919 explosive force, wind resistance, elevation. 00:02:32.039 --> 00:02:35.240 Right. It is a grueling, high stakes math problem. 00:02:36.099 --> 00:02:38.719 And getting the variables wrong means, well, 00:02:38.960 --> 00:02:41.319 hitting your own troops. Exactly. Which makes 00:02:41.319 --> 00:02:44.099 what happened next just so illuminating. He was 00:02:44.099 --> 00:02:46.240 sent to take this course on ballistics to improve 00:02:46.240 --> 00:02:49.360 his unit's accuracy. OK. Now, in any military 00:02:49.360 --> 00:02:52.099 setting, the chain of command is absolute. Right. 00:02:52.539 --> 00:02:54.830 Of course. You do what you're told. Right. You 00:02:54.830 --> 00:02:56.810 do not question your commanding officers, and 00:02:56.810 --> 00:02:58.889 you certainly do not question the official training 00:02:58.889 --> 00:03:02.289 manuals. Uh -oh. Let me guess. Yep. LaMaitre 00:03:02.289 --> 00:03:04.270 was reading through the artillery manual and 00:03:04.270 --> 00:03:07.430 found a fundamental mathematical error. In the 00:03:07.430 --> 00:03:11.050 official manual? In the official manual. An error 00:03:11.050 --> 00:03:14.349 in how they were calculating trajectories. And 00:03:14.349 --> 00:03:16.770 he didn't just quietly fix it for his own calculations. 00:03:16.889 --> 00:03:20.509 He openly pointed it out to his instructor. No 00:03:20.509 --> 00:03:23.530 way. Yeah. He argued that the manual was objectively 00:03:23.530 --> 00:03:26.520 wrong. I mean, he's sitting in the middle of 00:03:26.520 --> 00:03:29.900 a global catastrophe surrounded by mud and artillery 00:03:29.900 --> 00:03:33.020 fire, and bad math is the line he absolutely 00:03:33.020 --> 00:03:35.879 refuses to cross. That's Lemaitre for you. They 00:03:35.879 --> 00:03:38.039 actually marked him down for insubordination 00:03:38.039 --> 00:03:41.180 because of it. You're kidding. Nope. It completely 00:03:41.180 --> 00:03:43.259 derailed his prospects for being promoted to 00:03:43.259 --> 00:03:45.840 an officer. He stayed a rank -and -file soldier 00:03:45.840 --> 00:03:48.300 for the rest of the war. Wow. But his physical 00:03:48.300 --> 00:03:51.030 courage was undeniable. By the end of the conflict, 00:03:51.289 --> 00:03:53.449 he got the Belgian war cross with bronze palm. 00:03:53.569 --> 00:03:56.169 That's a huge deal, right? Oh, yeah. He was one 00:03:56.169 --> 00:03:58.250 of only five rank -and -file troops to receive 00:03:58.250 --> 00:04:01.030 it directly from King Albert I. Honestly, that 00:04:01.030 --> 00:04:02.969 insubordination detail tells us everything we 00:04:02.969 --> 00:04:05.270 need to know about the guy. He fundamentally 00:04:05.270 --> 00:04:07.930 cared more about what was objectively true than 00:04:07.930 --> 00:04:10.689 what authority told him was true. Exactly. If 00:04:10.689 --> 00:04:12.669 the math said one thing and the commanding officer 00:04:12.669 --> 00:04:15.969 said another, the math wins. And if we connect 00:04:15.969 --> 00:04:19.709 this to the bigger picture, that unwavering commitment 00:04:19.709 --> 00:04:22.589 to mathematical truth is the exact same mechanism 00:04:22.589 --> 00:04:25.230 that later allows him to challenge Albert Einstein. 00:04:25.430 --> 00:04:27.129 Oh, we are definitely getting to that. Yeah. 00:04:27.410 --> 00:04:30.170 So after surviving the war, he abandons his engineering 00:04:30.170 --> 00:04:32.949 path, shifts completely into physics and mathematics, 00:04:33.110 --> 00:04:35.870 and gets his doctorate in 1920. And then makes 00:04:35.870 --> 00:04:38.550 a pivot that just completely baffled his secular 00:04:38.550 --> 00:04:41.230 peers. Right. He enters the seminary to become 00:04:41.230 --> 00:04:43.329 a priest. But not just a regular parish priest, 00:04:43.449 --> 00:04:47.259 right? ordained in 1923, he joined a specific 00:04:47.259 --> 00:04:50.120 group called the fraternity sacerdotau des amis 00:04:50.120 --> 00:04:52.939 de jesu. Right, the friends of Jesus. Yeah, and 00:04:52.939 --> 00:04:55.779 he took the standard vows, poverty, chastity, 00:04:55.959 --> 00:04:58.819 obedience, but he also took a special vow, the 00:04:58.819 --> 00:05:01.740 votum immolationis. The vow of immolation. Yeah, 00:05:01.759 --> 00:05:04.060 what does that actually entail? It's a profound 00:05:04.319 --> 00:05:06.480 total submission to the person of Christ. It 00:05:06.480 --> 00:05:09.860 goes way beyond standard religious duties. It's 00:05:09.860 --> 00:05:11.959 essentially a complete surrendering of the ego 00:05:11.959 --> 00:05:15.199 and the self to his spiritual calling. It seems 00:05:15.199 --> 00:05:17.839 so contradictory on the surface. You've got this 00:05:17.839 --> 00:05:20.899 stubborn, mathematically rigorous combat veteran 00:05:20.899 --> 00:05:23.699 taking a vow of complete spiritual submission. 00:05:23.939 --> 00:05:27.399 It does seem paradoxical. You know, maybe Lamech's 00:05:27.399 --> 00:05:30.240 life is less like these two clashing forces and 00:05:30.240 --> 00:05:32.439 more like, think of it like two parallel train 00:05:32.439 --> 00:05:36.060 tracks, absolute devotion to his faith and absolute 00:05:36.060 --> 00:05:39.139 rigorous commitment to science running side by 00:05:39.139 --> 00:05:41.079 side, but never crossing. That's a really good 00:05:41.079 --> 00:05:43.899 way to put it. Right. He's using two completely 00:05:43.899 --> 00:05:46.639 different lenses. One lens, his science was strictly 00:05:46.639 --> 00:05:48.699 for looking at how the universe functioned. The 00:05:48.699 --> 00:05:51.240 other lens, his faith was strictly for exploring 00:05:51.240 --> 00:05:54.040 why it had meaning. He never tried to jam the 00:05:54.040 --> 00:05:56.160 two lenses together because that would just distort 00:05:56.160 --> 00:05:58.399 the picture. And that separation is what allowed 00:05:58.399 --> 00:06:00.439 his scientific mind to operate with absolute 00:06:00.439 --> 00:06:03.199 freedom. His superiors in the church actually 00:06:03.199 --> 00:06:05.540 recognized his brilliance. They fully supported 00:06:05.540 --> 00:06:07.579 his scientific ambitions. Which is pretty cool. 00:06:08.000 --> 00:06:10.819 Yeah. After his ordination, they sent him to 00:06:10.819 --> 00:06:13.139 Cambridge to study under Arthur Eddington, one 00:06:13.139 --> 00:06:15.680 of the top astronomers at the time. Then he goes 00:06:15.680 --> 00:06:18.269 to Harvard. to work with Harlow Shapley. And 00:06:18.269 --> 00:06:20.629 he even enrolls in a doctoral program at MIT. 00:06:20.850 --> 00:06:23.550 So he's just absorbing the absolute cutting edge 00:06:23.550 --> 00:06:26.790 of physics. Exactly. Which brings us to 1927 00:06:26.790 --> 00:06:29.730 and his collision with Albert Einstein's theory 00:06:29.730 --> 00:06:32.569 of general relativity. OK. Here is where we really 00:06:32.569 --> 00:06:34.670 need to understand the physics of the era to 00:06:34.670 --> 00:06:37.350 get why this was such a big deal. Right. Einstein's 00:06:37.350 --> 00:06:39.709 relativity essentially said that gravity is the 00:06:39.709 --> 00:06:44.259 warping of spacetime. by mass. Massive objects 00:06:44.259 --> 00:06:46.860 pull on each other. So if you look at the universe 00:06:46.860 --> 00:06:49.540 as a whole, all the galaxies should be pulling 00:06:49.540 --> 00:06:52.160 on each other. Left to its own devices, a universe 00:06:52.160 --> 00:06:54.120 full of mass should eventually collapse inward 00:06:54.120 --> 00:06:56.860 under its own gravity. Right. But Einstein, like 00:06:56.860 --> 00:06:58.899 almost every other scientist at the time, firmly 00:06:58.899 --> 00:07:02.029 believed the universe was static. Frozen. Yeah, 00:07:02.149 --> 00:07:04.629 that it had always existed, unchanging, in a 00:07:04.629 --> 00:07:07.769 steady state. So to prevent his theoretical universe 00:07:07.769 --> 00:07:10.610 from collapsing inward in his equations, Einstein 00:07:10.610 --> 00:07:13.589 mathematically wedged this fudge factor into 00:07:13.589 --> 00:07:16.509 his formulas. A fudge factor. Yeah, a repelling 00:07:16.509 --> 00:07:20.009 force called the cosmological consonant. He essentially 00:07:20.009 --> 00:07:22.670 balanced the inward pull of gravity with an outward 00:07:22.670 --> 00:07:25.670 push, freezing the universe in place. But LeMetro 00:07:25.670 --> 00:07:28.310 looked at that exact same math. the exact same 00:07:28.310 --> 00:07:30.810 equations, and notice the exact same kind of 00:07:30.810 --> 00:07:33.029 problem he saw in the artillery manual. Precisely. 00:07:33.129 --> 00:07:36.569 The math didn't describe a frozen universe. Well, 00:07:36.610 --> 00:07:39.329 Metra realized this balance Einstein created 00:07:39.329 --> 00:07:42.870 was incredibly unstable. How so? Well, if that 00:07:42.870 --> 00:07:45.250 outward pushing force was even slightly stronger 00:07:45.250 --> 00:07:47.810 than the inward pull of gravity, the universe 00:07:47.810 --> 00:07:49.910 wouldn't just sit there. It would actively stretch 00:07:49.910 --> 00:07:53.610 apart. Wow. In 1927, he published a paper in 00:07:53.610 --> 00:07:56.170 an obscure Belgian journal proposing exactly 00:07:56.170 --> 00:07:59.100 that. the fabric of space itself is expanding. 00:07:59.259 --> 00:08:01.819 And he didn't stop there, right? No. He calculated 00:08:01.819 --> 00:08:04.019 that because space is stretching, the further 00:08:04.019 --> 00:08:06.600 away a galaxy is from us, the faster it will 00:08:06.600 --> 00:08:08.740 appear to be moving away. The source text gives 00:08:08.740 --> 00:08:11.240 a really brilliant, simple analogy for this that 00:08:11.240 --> 00:08:13.399 makes the physics easy to visualize. Oh, the 00:08:13.399 --> 00:08:16.180 bread one. Yeah. Imagine the universe is like 00:08:16.180 --> 00:08:19.199 raisins in a rising loaf of bread. As the dough 00:08:19.199 --> 00:08:21.879 bakes and expands, the space between the raisins 00:08:21.879 --> 00:08:24.959 grows. Every raisin moves further away from every 00:08:24.959 --> 00:08:27.420 other raisin. If you're sitting on one specific 00:08:27.420 --> 00:08:30.879 raisin, all the other raisins look like they're 00:08:30.879 --> 00:08:33.620 receding from you. And the ones furthest away 00:08:33.620 --> 00:08:35.799 have more expanding dough between you and them, 00:08:35.799 --> 00:08:37.980 so they're receding the fastest. It perfectly 00:08:37.980 --> 00:08:40.580 captures the concept. The galaxies aren't just 00:08:40.580 --> 00:08:43.399 flying through empty space. Space itself is the 00:08:43.399 --> 00:08:45.440 dough, and it's expanding. That's mind -blowing. 00:08:45.679 --> 00:08:48.620 But when Lemaître presented this 1927 paper to 00:08:48.620 --> 00:08:51.399 Einstein at the Solvay conference, Einstein's 00:08:51.399 --> 00:08:54.379 response was famously brutal. Oh, I love this 00:08:54.379 --> 00:08:57.000 quote. He looked at Lemaître and said, your calculations 00:08:57.000 --> 00:09:00.039 are correct, but your physics is abominable. 00:09:00.320 --> 00:09:02.899 Abominable. The greatest mind of the century 00:09:02.899 --> 00:09:05.340 tells you your grasp of reality is terrible. 00:09:05.860 --> 00:09:07.580 Most people would just quit on the spot. Most 00:09:07.580 --> 00:09:10.039 people, yeah. But Lemaître had already been told 00:09:10.039 --> 00:09:12.100 by his commanding officers that his math was 00:09:12.100 --> 00:09:14.600 wrong, and he knew he was right then, too. He 00:09:14.600 --> 00:09:17.480 trusted the equations. He did. And he was entirely 00:09:17.480 --> 00:09:21.539 vindicated just two years later. In 1929, the 00:09:21.539 --> 00:09:24.620 American astronomer Edwin Hubble published observational 00:09:24.620 --> 00:09:26.990 data from the Mount Wilson Observatory. This 00:09:26.990 --> 00:09:30.129 is the famous Hubble's law. Exactly. Hubble tracked 00:09:30.129 --> 00:09:32.710 the light from distant galaxies and proved exactly 00:09:32.710 --> 00:09:35.070 what Lemaitre had theorized. Galaxies were indeed 00:09:35.070 --> 00:09:37.470 receding at a velocity proportional to their 00:09:37.470 --> 00:09:40.370 distance. The scientific community immediately 00:09:40.370 --> 00:09:43.230 embraced it. And for decades, this phenomenon 00:09:43.230 --> 00:09:46.210 was universally known as Hubble's law. Wait, 00:09:46.370 --> 00:09:48.090 I have to push back on this timeline. Go ahead. 00:09:48.429 --> 00:09:50.529 Lemaitre published the math and a proportional 00:09:50.529 --> 00:09:54.870 relationship in 1927. Hubble published his observations 00:09:54.870 --> 00:09:58.090 in 1929. Right. Why didn't Lemaître fight for 00:09:58.090 --> 00:10:00.870 the credit? If he was so stubborn about the artillery 00:10:00.870 --> 00:10:03.629 manual, why let Hubble take the glory for the 00:10:03.629 --> 00:10:05.830 expanding universe? It's a great question. And 00:10:05.830 --> 00:10:08.029 for a long time, the history of science actually 00:10:08.029 --> 00:10:10.129 viewed this as a massive conspiracy. Really? 00:10:10.350 --> 00:10:14.509 Yeah. In 1931, Lemaître's 1927 paper was finally 00:10:14.509 --> 00:10:16.830 translated into English and published in the 00:10:16.830 --> 00:10:19.230 prominent monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical 00:10:19.230 --> 00:10:22.929 Society. But mysteriously, The specific paragraphs 00:10:22.929 --> 00:10:25.110 where Lemaître estimated the rate of expansion, 00:10:25.330 --> 00:10:28.029 what we now call the Hubble constant, were completely 00:10:28.029 --> 00:10:30.549 missing from the translation. So people assumed 00:10:30.549 --> 00:10:33.090 the English editors censored Lemaître to protect 00:10:33.090 --> 00:10:35.970 Hubble's legacy, like a classic scientific cover 00:10:35.970 --> 00:10:39.230 -up. That was the prevailing theory. Until 2011, 00:10:39.690 --> 00:10:42.549 an astrophysicist named Mario Livio dug into 00:10:42.549 --> 00:10:44.889 the archives of the Royal Astronomical Society 00:10:44.889 --> 00:10:48.360 and found the original correspondence. He proved 00:10:48.360 --> 00:10:50.559 conclusively that Lemaitre translated the paper 00:10:50.559 --> 00:10:53.360 himself, and Lemaitre intentionally deleted those 00:10:53.360 --> 00:10:55.440 paragraphs. He erased his own discovery. Why 00:10:55.440 --> 00:10:59.159 would he do that? Because by 1931, Hubble's observational 00:10:59.159 --> 00:11:02.440 data from 1929 was vastly superior to the data 00:11:02.440 --> 00:11:05.779 Lemaitre had access to back in 1927. Oh, wow. 00:11:06.139 --> 00:11:08.539 Lemaitre realized his old estimates were outdated, 00:11:09.000 --> 00:11:11.539 so out of pure scientific integrity, he omitted 00:11:11.539 --> 00:11:13.899 his own groundbreaking calculations to defer 00:11:13.899 --> 00:11:15.919 to the more accurate data. Yes, just to all. 00:11:16.039 --> 00:11:18.600 He didn't care about his ego or securing his 00:11:18.600 --> 00:11:20.700 name in the history books. He only cared that 00:11:20.700 --> 00:11:22.580 the most accurate version of the truth was being 00:11:22.580 --> 00:11:25.639 advanced. That is a staggering application of 00:11:25.639 --> 00:11:28.659 that vow of immolation. The total surrender of 00:11:28.659 --> 00:11:31.299 the ego. It really is. Though, to be fair to 00:11:31.299 --> 00:11:33.820 history, the record is finally being set straight. 00:11:34.840 --> 00:11:37.679 In 2018, the International Astronomical Union 00:11:37.679 --> 00:11:40.379 officially voted to rename the phenomenon the 00:11:40.379 --> 00:11:43.179 Hubble Ametra Law. A deeply necessary correction, 00:11:43.379 --> 00:11:46.269 yeah. But LeMatch's brilliance wasn't just in 00:11:46.269 --> 00:11:48.929 seeing the expansion, it was in realizing the 00:11:48.929 --> 00:11:50.990 logical conclusion of that expansion. Here's 00:11:50.990 --> 00:11:53.129 where it gets really interesting, because if 00:11:53.129 --> 00:11:54.929 you know the universe is expanding like that 00:11:54.929 --> 00:11:58.029 rising loaf of bread, you can conceptually just 00:11:58.029 --> 00:12:00.809 hit rewind on the universe's movie. Precisely. 00:12:00.950 --> 00:12:03.029 If things are moving apart today, yesterday they 00:12:03.029 --> 00:12:05.460 were closer together. Right. La Major followed 00:12:05.460 --> 00:12:07.659 the mathematics of thermodynamics and quantum 00:12:07.659 --> 00:12:11.240 mechanics all the way back to day zero. In a 00:12:11.240 --> 00:12:13.419 short, highly provocative paper published in 00:12:13.419 --> 00:12:16.360 the journal Nature in 1931, he proposed that 00:12:16.360 --> 00:12:18.820 if you wind the clock back far enough, all the 00:12:18.820 --> 00:12:21.159 mass and energy of the entire universe must have 00:12:21.159 --> 00:12:24.200 been compressed into a single, unimaginably dense 00:12:24.200 --> 00:12:26.679 quantum state. And he called it what? He called 00:12:26.679 --> 00:12:29.759 it the primeval atom. So the entire cosmos... 00:12:29.799 --> 00:12:32.860 Every star, every galaxy, all of space and time 00:12:32.860 --> 00:12:37.279 crushed into a single unstable microscopic point 00:12:37.279 --> 00:12:39.659 that eventually fractured and expanded outward. 00:12:39.929 --> 00:12:42.309 He essentially birthed modern cosmology with 00:12:42.309 --> 00:12:45.210 a single logical leap. Yeah, and people noticed. 00:12:45.710 --> 00:12:48.789 By 1932, this idea was being featured in Popular 00:12:48.789 --> 00:12:52.549 Science magazine. By 1933, Lemaître was a global 00:12:52.549 --> 00:12:54.970 celebrity. That was fast. He was touring the 00:12:54.970 --> 00:12:57.470 United States, lecturing in California. And during 00:12:57.470 --> 00:12:59.549 one of these lectures, Albert Einstein was in 00:12:59.549 --> 00:13:02.279 the audience. Oh no, round two. Actually, when 00:13:02.279 --> 00:13:04.340 Lemaître finished explaining the primeval atom, 00:13:04.879 --> 00:13:08.340 Einstein stood up, applauded, and declared, this 00:13:08.340 --> 00:13:11.080 is the most beautiful and satisfactory explanation 00:13:11.080 --> 00:13:13.519 of creation to which I have ever listened. The 00:13:13.519 --> 00:13:16.480 man who called his physics abominable gives him 00:13:16.480 --> 00:13:19.799 a standing ovation. Complete 180. But if we look 00:13:19.799 --> 00:13:21.759 at the source text, Lemaître never actually used 00:13:21.759 --> 00:13:24.419 the phrase Big Bang. No, he didn't. The term 00:13:24.419 --> 00:13:26.980 Big Bang was actually coined years later in 1949 00:13:26.980 --> 00:13:30.820 as a mocking insult. Yeah. An astronomer named 00:13:30.820 --> 00:13:33.940 Fred Hoyle, who fiercely defended the old idea 00:13:33.940 --> 00:13:36.740 of an internal steady state universe, was giving 00:13:36.740 --> 00:13:39.960 a BBC radio broadcast. He was trying to make 00:13:39.960 --> 00:13:42.899 Lemaitre's theory sound ridiculous, so he derisively 00:13:42.899 --> 00:13:45.159 referred to it as this Big Bang idea. And it 00:13:45.159 --> 00:13:47.080 totally backfired. Completely. The name was so 00:13:47.080 --> 00:13:49.580 catchy that it stuck forever. but Hoyle's resistance 00:13:49.580 --> 00:13:51.799 highlights a major tension that Lemaitre had 00:13:51.799 --> 00:13:54.320 to deal with. To a lot of secular scientists, 00:13:54.539 --> 00:13:56.799 the idea of a universe bursting into existence 00:13:56.799 --> 00:14:00.080 from a single point at a specific moment in time 00:14:00.080 --> 00:14:02.480 sounded suspiciously like the book of Genesis. 00:14:02.620 --> 00:14:05.240 It sounded like a priest trying to smuggle religion 00:14:05.240 --> 00:14:07.940 into the physics lab. And to be fair, early in 00:14:07.940 --> 00:14:10.179 his career, Lemaitre did actually attempt to 00:14:10.179 --> 00:14:12.600 harmonize the two. There's this philosophical 00:14:12.600 --> 00:14:15.080 approach called Concordism, which is the attempt 00:14:15.080 --> 00:14:17.779 to read scientific facts directly into theological 00:14:17.779 --> 00:14:19.860 scriptures. OK, how did you do that? Well, for 00:14:19.860 --> 00:14:22.679 instance, in 1917, Lemaitre tried to link the 00:14:22.679 --> 00:14:25.139 physical concept of black body radiation to the 00:14:25.139 --> 00:14:27.279 Bible. Just to clarify for anyone who hasn't 00:14:27.279 --> 00:14:30.200 taken a physics class recently, black body radiation 00:14:30.200 --> 00:14:33.039 is basically the concept that when objects heat 00:14:33.039 --> 00:14:36.440 up, they emit light. The color of the light depends 00:14:36.440 --> 00:14:39.360 on the temperature, like iron glowing red in 00:14:39.360 --> 00:14:42.340 a forge. Good summary. So how did he link that 00:14:42.340 --> 00:14:45.580 to the Bible? He theorized that the initial expansion 00:14:45.580 --> 00:14:47.940 of the universe would have been intensely hot, 00:14:48.480 --> 00:14:50.840 creating a massive burst of primordial light. 00:14:51.200 --> 00:14:53.850 He tried to argue that... This physical radiation 00:14:53.850 --> 00:14:56.990 was the literal manifestation of God saying fiat 00:14:56.990 --> 00:15:00.389 lux, let there be light in Genesis. So he's trying 00:15:00.389 --> 00:15:02.289 to prove that physics and scripture were saying 00:15:02.289 --> 00:15:04.750 the exact same thing. Exactly. But he realized 00:15:04.750 --> 00:15:07.129 how dangerous that was, didn't he? Because if 00:15:07.129 --> 00:15:09.110 our understanding of physics changes, which it 00:15:09.110 --> 00:15:10.990 always does, does that mean the scripture is 00:15:10.990 --> 00:15:13.149 suddenly false? That's exactly the trap. And 00:15:13.149 --> 00:15:15.549 he eventually abandoned Concordism entirely. 00:15:15.929 --> 00:15:18.809 He realized that using science to prop up religion 00:15:18.809 --> 00:15:21.970 or using religion to dictate science fundamentally 00:15:21.899 --> 00:15:23.919 to lead to grades both of it. It muddies the 00:15:23.919 --> 00:15:26.840 waters. Yeah. He gave an interview to the New 00:15:26.840 --> 00:15:28.899 York Times where he stated plainly, there is 00:15:28.899 --> 00:15:31.600 no conflict between religion and science to reconcile. 00:15:32.159 --> 00:15:34.940 To Lemaître, the Bible was a guide for salvation 00:15:34.940 --> 00:15:38.779 and human morality, not a textbook on astrophysics. 00:15:38.779 --> 00:15:41.720 Right. A scientific theory had to stand entirely 00:15:41.720 --> 00:15:44.700 on its own mathematical and observational merits, 00:15:45.259 --> 00:15:47.480 completely isolated from theology. Which brings 00:15:47.480 --> 00:15:49.539 us crashing back to the story we started with. 00:15:49.639 --> 00:15:53.460 Oh, the pope? Is it incredibly ironic? For years, 00:15:53.759 --> 00:15:56.340 secular scientists distrusted his theory because 00:15:56.340 --> 00:15:58.340 they thought he was secretly pushing a religious 00:15:58.340 --> 00:16:01.820 agenda. And then in 1951, the Pope actually does 00:16:01.820 --> 00:16:04.820 exactly what the scientists feared. He publicly 00:16:04.820 --> 00:16:07.000 declares that the Big Bang is scientific proof 00:16:07.000 --> 00:16:10.000 of the Catholic faith. You can imagine Lemaître's 00:16:10.000 --> 00:16:11.759 panic. I mean, if the head of the Catholic Church 00:16:11.759 --> 00:16:14.840 officially brands the Big Bang as Catholic dogma, 00:16:15.399 --> 00:16:17.340 every non -Tatholic scientist in the world might 00:16:17.340 --> 00:16:19.960 reject it at a pure religious prejudice, regardless 00:16:19.960 --> 00:16:22.200 of what the math says. Exactly. Lemaître knew 00:16:22.200 --> 00:16:24.059 this would destroy the objective credibility 00:16:24.059 --> 00:16:26.759 of his life's work. So what exactly did he do? 00:16:27.340 --> 00:16:29.659 Because telling the pope he's wrong about theology 00:16:29.659 --> 00:16:32.799 is a historically dangerous move. Well, Lemaître 00:16:32.799 --> 00:16:35.039 teamed up with Father Daniel O 'Connell, who 00:16:35.039 --> 00:16:37.279 was the director of the Vatican Observatory. 00:16:37.759 --> 00:16:40.179 Together, they requested an audience with Pope 00:16:40.179 --> 00:16:43.120 Pius XII. Just marched right in. Yeah, and they 00:16:43.120 --> 00:16:45.679 painstakingly explained that linking a physical 00:16:45.679 --> 00:16:49.059 cosmological model to eternal theological truths 00:16:49.059 --> 00:16:52.259 was a massive mistake. Science is inherently 00:16:52.259 --> 00:16:56.279 mutable. It updates as new data arise. Theology 00:16:56.279 --> 00:16:58.799 claims to be eternal. If you tie them together, 00:16:59.200 --> 00:17:01.659 you put the church in a highly vulnerable position. 00:17:01.720 --> 00:17:04.559 And it worked. Remarkably, yes. They convinced 00:17:04.559 --> 00:17:07.680 the Pope to completely stop making public statements 00:17:07.680 --> 00:17:10.380 linking the Big Bang to creationism. He guarded 00:17:10.380 --> 00:17:12.980 the integrity of his physics with the exact same 00:17:12.980 --> 00:17:15.759 fierce dedication he gave to his religious vows. 00:17:16.059 --> 00:17:18.059 Exactly. He kept those two lenses completely 00:17:18.059 --> 00:17:20.400 separate. And because he didn't view his theory 00:17:20.400 --> 00:17:23.160 as the final divine word on the universe, he 00:17:23.160 --> 00:17:25.380 kept hunting for physical evidence to back it 00:17:25.380 --> 00:17:28.779 up. Yes. Lemaitre reasoned that if the entire 00:17:28.779 --> 00:17:31.779 universe exploded from a primeval atom, that 00:17:31.779 --> 00:17:34.339 event must have left behind fossils residual 00:17:34.339 --> 00:17:37.819 energy still echoing through space today. So 00:17:37.819 --> 00:17:40.180 he spent a massive portion of his later career 00:17:40.180 --> 00:17:42.859 studying cosmic rays, believing they might be 00:17:42.859 --> 00:17:45.779 the literal debris of the Big Bang. Cosmic rays 00:17:45.779 --> 00:17:48.000 are essentially high energy particles zooming 00:17:48.000 --> 00:17:50.380 through space that constantly bombard the Earth. 00:17:51.019 --> 00:17:53.680 But the source text mentions that his study of 00:17:53.680 --> 00:17:55.720 cosmic rays led him into a totally different 00:17:55.720 --> 00:17:58.650 field. Oh, the computing stuff. Yeah. So what 00:17:58.650 --> 00:18:01.109 does this all mean? How does a chalkboard theoretical 00:18:01.109 --> 00:18:04.089 physicist become a pioneer of early computer 00:18:04.089 --> 00:18:06.390 programming? It loops right back to his time 00:18:06.390 --> 00:18:09.849 in the WWI artillery. He had a lifelong obsession 00:18:09.849 --> 00:18:12.970 with complex numerical computation. At the time, 00:18:13.049 --> 00:18:15.849 there was this fierce debate in physics. A Nobel 00:18:15.849 --> 00:18:18.549 laureate named Robert Milliken argued that cosmic 00:18:18.549 --> 00:18:20.910 rays were basically just high -energy light photons. 00:18:21.190 --> 00:18:23.599 But Lemaître disagreed. Right. Lemaître thought 00:18:23.599 --> 00:18:26.059 they were physical charged particles. But to 00:18:26.059 --> 00:18:28.279 prove it, he had to calculate how these theoretical 00:18:28.279 --> 00:18:30.880 particles would be deflected by the Earth's curved 00:18:30.880 --> 00:18:33.000 magnetic field as they approached the planet. 00:18:33.299 --> 00:18:35.539 Doing that kind of complex three -dimensional 00:18:35.539 --> 00:18:38.880 calculus by hand for thousands of different trajectories, 00:18:39.460 --> 00:18:42.299 that would take a human lifetime. Which is why, 00:18:42.339 --> 00:18:44.359 while working with a scientist named Sandoval 00:18:44.359 --> 00:18:47.519 Velada at MIT, Lemaître turned to one of the 00:18:47.519 --> 00:18:50.660 world's first analog computers. Vannevar Bush's 00:18:50.660 --> 00:18:52.900 differential analyzer. I looked this up and we 00:18:52.900 --> 00:18:54.980 have to be clear. This is not a computer with 00:18:54.980 --> 00:18:56.519 a screen and a keyboard. No, not at all. This 00:18:56.519 --> 00:18:59.599 is a massive room -sized mechanical beast made 00:18:59.599 --> 00:19:02.400 of physical gears, rotating shafts, and metal 00:19:02.400 --> 00:19:06.839 wheels. You literally programmed it. using a 00:19:06.839 --> 00:19:09.220 wrench to physically connect different gears 00:19:09.220 --> 00:19:11.960 to solve calculus equations through mechanical 00:19:11.960 --> 00:19:14.680 rotation. He was an engineering marvel, and LaMetra 00:19:14.680 --> 00:19:17.500 mastered it. By feeding the equations into the 00:19:17.500 --> 00:19:20.119 differential analyzer, LaMetra and Volarda proved 00:19:20.119 --> 00:19:22.759 that the intensity of cosmic rays changes depending 00:19:22.759 --> 00:19:25.279 on your latitude on Earth. Which means? That 00:19:25.279 --> 00:19:27.940 behavior is only possible if the rays are charged 00:19:27.940 --> 00:19:30.859 particles being bent by the magnetic field. They 00:19:30.859 --> 00:19:33.460 used a mechanical brain to completely disprove 00:19:33.460 --> 00:19:36.240 a Nobel laureate's theory of light. It's the 00:19:36.240 --> 00:19:39.059 artillery manual all over again. When the calculations 00:19:39.059 --> 00:19:41.519 get too complex, he just finds a better tool 00:19:41.519 --> 00:19:44.619 to correct the math. Exactly. He eventually introduced 00:19:44.619 --> 00:19:48.279 the Burroughs E -101. an early electromechanical 00:19:48.279 --> 00:19:51.380 computer to his university in Belgium, and even 00:19:51.380 --> 00:19:53.740 worked on developing an early programming language 00:19:53.740 --> 00:19:57.140 called VeloCode, a precursor to BASIC. It's incredible. 00:19:57.500 --> 00:20:00.039 And beyond early computing, his ability to look 00:20:00.039 --> 00:20:03.000 at the math and see reality decades before anyone 00:20:03.000 --> 00:20:05.599 else continued to yield massive results. Let's 00:20:05.599 --> 00:20:08.119 look back at that fudge factor in Einstein's 00:20:08.119 --> 00:20:10.480 equations, the cosmological constant. Oh, right, 00:20:10.480 --> 00:20:13.039 the anti -gravity push. Once Hubble proved the 00:20:13.039 --> 00:20:16.019 universe was expanding, Einstein completely abandoned 00:20:15.950 --> 00:20:18.849 in the constant, famously calling it his biggest 00:20:18.849 --> 00:20:21.230 blunder. Because if the universe is expanding, 00:20:21.309 --> 00:20:23.470 you don't need a mathematical force keeping it 00:20:23.470 --> 00:20:26.029 static. So Einstein threw it out. But Lemaître 00:20:26.029 --> 00:20:29.369 argued passionately to keep it. He told the scientific 00:20:29.369 --> 00:20:32.150 community that a positive cosmological constant 00:20:32.150 --> 00:20:35.630 was still mathematically necessary. He proposed 00:20:35.630 --> 00:20:38.579 that it didn't just keep things static. It represented 00:20:38.579 --> 00:20:41.099 a repulsive energy inherent to the vacuum of 00:20:41.099 --> 00:20:43.900 space itself. He argued it would eventually cause 00:20:43.900 --> 00:20:46.099 the expansion of the universe to accelerate. 00:20:46.319 --> 00:20:48.559 Wait, he predicted an accelerating universe in 00:20:48.559 --> 00:20:52.539 the 1930s? He did. And in 2011, the Nobel Prize 00:20:52.539 --> 00:20:55.000 in Physics was awarded to a team of modern astronomers 00:20:55.000 --> 00:20:58.259 who proved, using distant supernovae, that the 00:20:58.259 --> 00:21:00.740 expansion of the universe is indeed accelerating. 00:21:00.839 --> 00:21:03.980 That's dark energy. Yes. We now call the mysterious 00:21:03.980 --> 00:21:06.579 force driving this acceleration dark energy. 00:21:07.319 --> 00:21:09.920 When the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences published 00:21:09.920 --> 00:21:12.039 the scientific background for that 2011 Nobel 00:21:12.039 --> 00:21:15.279 Prize, they explicitly credited Georges Lemaître 00:21:15.279 --> 00:21:17.880 for his incredible decades ahead of its time 00:21:17.880 --> 00:21:20.019 foresight regarding the cosmological constant. 00:21:20.339 --> 00:21:22.480 So he foresaw the Big Bang. He predicted dark 00:21:22.480 --> 00:21:24.680 energy. He helped pioneer computer programming 00:21:24.680 --> 00:21:27.319 all while actively serving the church. Right. 00:21:27.380 --> 00:21:29.579 He eventually became the president of the Pontifical 00:21:29.579 --> 00:21:32.900 Academy of Sciences in 1960. He held that position 00:21:32.900 --> 00:21:36.500 until his death. But Even with that high -ranking 00:21:36.500 --> 00:21:39.160 Vatican role, he never lost his intellectual 00:21:39.160 --> 00:21:42.440 humility. During the Second Vatican Council in 00:21:42.440 --> 00:21:45.839 the early 1960s, the Pope asked La Metra to serve 00:21:45.839 --> 00:21:48.559 on a special commission examining the incredibly 00:21:48.559 --> 00:21:51.039 complex theological and social issue of birth 00:21:51.039 --> 00:21:53.220 control. A commission that could fundamentally 00:21:53.220 --> 00:21:56.220 alter Catholic doctrine. What was his response? 00:21:56.400 --> 00:21:59.599 He politely declined. Really? Yeah. His health 00:21:59.599 --> 00:22:01.539 was failing, he had recently suffered a heart 00:22:01.539 --> 00:22:03.920 attack, but he also confided in a colleague that 00:22:03.920 --> 00:22:06.759 he believed it was deeply dangerous for a mathematician 00:22:06.759 --> 00:22:09.779 to venture outside his specific area of expertise. 00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:11.920 He knew exactly what he was qualified to analyze 00:22:11.920 --> 00:22:14.420 and what he wasn't. He knew which lens to use. 00:22:14.700 --> 00:22:16.579 Precisely. Which brings us to the end of his 00:22:16.579 --> 00:22:19.519 life and frankly a moment of cosmic timing that 00:22:19.519 --> 00:22:22.339 feels almost scripted. It really does. George 00:22:22.339 --> 00:22:26.579 Lemaître died on June 20th, 1966. But just a 00:22:26.579 --> 00:22:28.700 few days before he passed away in his hospital 00:22:28.700 --> 00:22:31.200 bed in Belgium, his assistant came to his room 00:22:31.200 --> 00:22:33.099 to deliver some breaking news. What happened? 00:22:33.299 --> 00:22:36.099 Two radio astronomers in New Jersey, Arno Penzias 00:22:36.099 --> 00:22:38.519 and Robert Wilson, had accidentally detected 00:22:38.519 --> 00:22:41.720 a faint uniform microwave signal coming from 00:22:41.720 --> 00:22:44.099 every direction in the sky. The cosmic microwave 00:22:44.099 --> 00:22:47.200 background radiation. Exactly. When the primeval 00:22:47.200 --> 00:22:50.140 atom expanded, the universe was incredibly hot. 00:22:50.220 --> 00:22:55.059 dense. As it expanded, it cooled. The CMB is 00:22:55.059 --> 00:22:57.720 the residual heat from that initial expansion 00:22:57.720 --> 00:23:00.740 stretched out over billions of years into microwave 00:23:00.740 --> 00:23:04.039 frequencies. It is the literal physical echo 00:23:04.039 --> 00:23:07.019 of the Big Bang. Yes, it was the ultimate irrefutable 00:23:07.019 --> 00:23:10.440 proof that the Lemaître's 1931 theory was correct. 00:23:10.960 --> 00:23:12.980 He got to hear that his life's greatest work 00:23:12.980 --> 00:23:15.539 was proven true just days before he died. That 00:23:15.539 --> 00:23:18.359 is beautiful. So looking at his entire life, 00:23:18.569 --> 00:23:20.970 The thing that resonates the most is how he managed 00:23:20.970 --> 00:23:23.210 his own internal complexity. Oh, absolutely. 00:23:23.390 --> 00:23:25.069 We live in a culture that constantly demands 00:23:25.069 --> 00:23:27.569 we pick a side. Are you a person of cold, hard 00:23:27.569 --> 00:23:30.690 data, or are you a person of deep spiritual intuition? 00:23:31.289 --> 00:23:32.990 We are told that these identities are at war 00:23:32.990 --> 00:23:35.410 with one another. But look at Lamentra. What 00:23:35.410 --> 00:23:37.769 if his genius didn't happen in spite of his divided 00:23:37.769 --> 00:23:40.779 life, but because of it? What could you achieve 00:23:40.779 --> 00:23:43.380 if you stop trying to force all of your diverse 00:23:43.380 --> 00:23:46.019 interests, your varied beliefs, and your seemingly 00:23:46.019 --> 00:23:49.240 contradictory passions into one neat, unified, 00:23:49.660 --> 00:23:53.059 easily explainable box? What if, like Lemaitre, 00:23:53.380 --> 00:23:56.180 you just let them exist powerfully and independently, 00:23:56.359 --> 00:23:59.019 side by side? It's a solid reminder that the 00:23:59.019 --> 00:24:01.140 universe and the people who study it are rarely 00:24:01.140 --> 00:24:04.160 simple. A profound thought to leave on. Thanks 00:24:04.160 --> 00:24:06.200 for joining us on this deep dive into the expanding 00:24:06.200 --> 00:24:08.589 mind of Georges Lemaitre. Keep questioning the 00:24:08.589 --> 00:24:09.849 manuals and we'll catch you next time.