Abbe Georges Lemaitre
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The Reverend Monsignor Georges Lemaître |
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|---|---|
Lemaître c. 1933
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| Born |
17 July 1894 Charleroi, Belgium |
| Died | 20 June 1966 (aged 71) Leuven, Belgium |
| Nationality | Belgian |
| Alma mater |
Catholic University of Leuven St Edmund's House, Cambridge Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Known for |
Theory of the expansion of the universe Big Bang theory Lemaître coordinates |
| Awards |
Francqui Prize (1934) Eddington Medal (1953) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Mathematics |
| Institutions | Catholic University of Leuven |
| Doctoral advisor |
Charles Jean de la Vallée-Poussin (Leuven) Arthur Eddington (Cambridge) Harlow Shapley (MIT) |
| Doctoral students | Louis Philippe Bouckaert, Rene van der Borght |
| Signature | |
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Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître Associate RAS (French: [ʒɔʁʒᵊ ləmɛ:tʁᵊ]; 17 July 1894 – 20 June 1966) was a Belgian Catholic Priest, astronomer and professor of physics at the Catholic University of Leuven. He proposed the theory of the expansion of the universe, widely misattributed to Edwin Hubble. He was the first to derive what is now known as Hubble's law and made the first estimation of what is now called the Hubble constant, which he published in 1927, two years before Hubble's article. Lemaître also proposed what became known as the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe, which he called his "hypothesis of the primeval atom" or the "Cosmic Egg".
After a classical education at a Jesuit secondary school, the Collège du Sacré-Coeur, in Charleroi, Lemaître began studying civil engineering at the Catholic University of Leuven at the age of 17. In 1914, he interrupted his studies to serve as an artillery officer in the Belgian army for the duration of World War I. At the end of hostilities, he received the Belgian War Cross with palms.
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