by Dr. Tom Sheahen

Q. Isn't this “Mayan Calendar” hysteria overblown? I don't think the world will end tomorrow.

“Overblown” and “hysteria” are very good choices of words. But as long as the TV reporters are devoted to boosting their ratings, scrounging around for a new, more flamboyant headline, this kind of stuff will continue.

Instead of dwelling on the Mayans, this might be a good time to think back to the beginning of the universe, and how our scientific theories about it have developed during the last 100 years.

Astronomy and cosmology go clear back to Aristotle, but in 1912, we had no idea of separate galaxies. There were some fuzzy objects out there, but telescopes weren't good enough to resolve what they actually were.

Then along came Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, which was a comprehensive theory uniting space and time and gravity. Einstein's theory was totally different from what people had previously assumed. But Einstein's previous theoretical accomplishments (four important new theories in 1905) assured that many scientists at least paid attention. By 1918, a prediction of Einstein's theory was verified via an experiment conducted during a solar eclipse, and that greatly enhanced the credibility of General Relativity.

Soon many more scientists got interested, because it was possible to associate the huge amount of observed astronomical data with a theory that made sense of it all. The measurable difference in light arriving from some very distant stars (the “red shift”) provided convincing evidence that the universe was expanding – and that begged for an explanation.

Einstein's equations of General Relativity involved tensor calculus, which was unfamiliar to most scientists at the time; but a few set out to solve those equations for special conditions of the universe. Einstein himself believed that the universe was in a “steady state,” hardly changing at all.

Around 1922, a Russian named Alexander Friedmann worked out a solution for a universe expanding from a singular starting point; unfortunately, he died soon thereafter and his work wasn't noticed. Working independently, Georges LeMaitre, a Belgian Catholic priest, solved Einstein's equations for a universe starting at time t = 0 and expanding from a singular point to its present size. He turned that in as his doctoral thesis to both Harvard and M.I.T. in 1925, and that was quickly noticed in the western scientific world.

When Einstein heard of LeMaitre's work, he scoffed at it; and that disdain put LeMaitre into an uphill struggle. The impression of a steady unchanging universe “out there” was very strong in those days, and the thought of everything starting off at a single point was incomprehensible to most physicists. Other critics sneeringly invented the phrase “big bang” to pile on the ridicule.

It's an interesting footnote to history that foolish people dismissed Einstein at first, using the derisive term “Jewish physics.” But Einstein was so well respected that in 1939 he signed a letter to President Roosevelt pointing out the possibility of an atomic bomb, and soon the United States began the Manhattan Project to build it. Fortunately, the Nazis believed their own anti-Semitic propaganda, were dismissive of Einstein, and didn't finance an effort comparable to the Manhattan Project to build an atomic bomb.

The disdain for LeMaitre didn't last long. Better telescopes were built, and other galaxies beyond our own Milky Way were found. By 1929, Edwin Hubble's observations permitted a calculation of how fast the universe was expanding, and it was all consistent with LeMaitre's theory. Einstein himself eventually came to agree with LeMaitre – for the simple and honorable scientific reason that LeMaitre's theoretical solution accounted for the data. Einstein's Theory of General Relativity, meanwhile, became fully accepted throughout the scientific world.

With his scientific respectability secure, LeMaitre moved in higher circles within the Catholic Church, and became a key scientific advisor to Pope Pius XII. In 1950, a most interesting backstage drama took place, which shows what real scientists think about even the best scientific theories.

Pope Pius XII saw that the big bang theory coincided very nicely with the narrative in Chapter one of the Book of Genesis, and was going to declare it to be true, a doctrine of faith. Obviously that would have been a huge accolade for LeMaitre, a permanent vindication of his theory. Instead of rejoicing at this, LeMaitre himself talked the Pope out of it. LeMaitre explained that NO theory in physics, however elegant or reliable, is truly final. Every theory can always be revised; every theory can be contradicted (and thereby destroyed) by a single experiment. LeMaitre knew his history well: only a century earlier, “the ether” seemed a sure thing.

In 1963, new evidence from radio astronomy gave further evidence that indeed the universe originated in a sudden explosion, and the competing “steady state” theory was abandoned. The big bang became the only game in town. However, with the passage of yet another half-century, recent observations have indicated that some correction may be necessary to Einstein's theory: there may well be some additional force (customarily termed “dark energy”) that causes the expansion of the universe to accelerate. In the years ahead, will General Relativity or the big bang be corrected? Stay tuned.

Fr. Georges LeMaitre had an enduring confidence that both science and religion are complementary pathways to knowledge, but scientific theories can stand or fall on their own, and don't need religion to referee. Albert Einstein's famous quotes include this: "Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind." More recently (1987), Pope John Paul II stated their complementary relationship very cogently: “Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes.” Thinking that a scientific theory is “final” would be a false absolute. It is enormously to the credit of LeMaitre that he dismissed fame for himself, and adhered to his understanding of the proper relationship between science and religion.