The Day Without Yesterday: Lemaitre, Einstein, and the Birth of Modern Cosmology

by John Farrell

Book Overview

Sometimes our understanding of our universe is given a huge boost by one insightful thinker. Such a boost came in the first half of the twentieth century, when an obscure Belgian priest put his mind to deciphering the nature of the cosmos. Is the universe evolving to some unforeseen end, or is it static, as the Greeks believed? The debate has preoccupied thinkers from Heraclitus to the author of the Upanishads, from the Mayans to Einstein. The Day...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1560259027
• ISBN13: 9781560259022
• Release Date: October 2005
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.2" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Fun and informative

This book was a joy to read. I'm an astrophysicist who does a lot of work with general relativity, and I had absolutely no clue how deep and important the contributions of Lemaitre are to my own field! What was particularly fascinating for me to see was how deeply Lemaitre's thinking was driven by data and observations. Over much of its history, general relativity has been a rather mathematical subfield of physics; it is taught in math departments rather than physics departments in many British universities, for example. It's much more common for this data-driven thinking to be applied to work in relativity today than it was in during Lemaitre's era. That's just one one thing that I was fascinated by. The book is extremely well written and enjoyable; I read it on my morning train commute to the office and nearly missed my stop several times. I recommend this to anyone who is interested in an in-depth biography of an underappreciated founder of modern cosmology and astrophysics.

The Primeval Big Bang Cosmologist

Georges LemaÎtre may just be the Rodney Dangerfield of cosmology - he just can't get the respect he deserves [in the book I'm currently reading, it says "Modern cosmology is based on the big bang theory proposed by George Gamow..."]. _The Day Without Yesterday_ by John Farrell goes a long way towards making the case that Georges LemaÎtre should at the least share the title of the Father of Modern Cosmology. In the book, we follow the trajectory of the life of Fra Georges LemaÎtre, priest, mathematician, and physicist, played out against the first 2/3rds of history of the 20th Century and the history of modern cosmology. We learn of LemaÎtre's "primeval atom" - the original version of the big bang - and his interactions [or lack thereof] with Einstein, Hubble, Gamow and others. I am pleased to report that LemaÎtre lived long enough to hear about the discovery of the cosmic background radiation and the vindication of the big bang. LemaÎtre is a good example of the fact that religion and science need not conflict. I highly recommend this fine book to fans of biography and the history of science.

Enjoyable and Informative

I strongly recommend The Day Without Yesterday to anyone with an interest in physics, astronomy and the history of the universe. As well as being an excellent layperson's introduction to Lemaitre's development of the expanding model of the universe (what has become known as the "Big Bang") it provides an excellent description of how real scientists deal with new data, theories and their philosophical implications. Up until the mid Twenties, virtually all scientists (from ancients like Aristotle and Lucretius to the greats of early and modern science such as Newton and Einstein) had envisioned an essentially static universe. Lemaitre (a World War I veteran, Catholic priest, and physics/mathematics PhD) realized that Einstein's field equations equations implied an expanding universe, which must have had its origin in a "primeval atom" containing all matter in the universe. Lemaitre also made important contributions to "black hole" theory and other areas of theoretical physics. He was appointed to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences by Pope Pius XI and was made its president by John XXIII, who also (somewhat to Lemaitre's confusion) appointed him to the pontifical commission to study birth control. (Lemaitre died well before the commission provided its report to Paul VI.) Although a certain amount of familiarity with mathematics will help, you don't need a great deal of knowledge about the field to enjoy Farrell's writing. I would class The Day Without Yesterday with books like Longitude and Galileo's Daughter, which provide a good popular introduction to an important transitional period in science while remaining accessible to the general reader.

A Great 20th Century Biography

The most absorbing, detailed, instructive, provocative book ever published about 20th century Physics and the individuals who transformed the way in which mankind perceives the cosmos. An exciting work, a scientific biography of the first magnitude that reads like a thriller. This definitive biography illuminates the complexity of Mr. LeMaitre, who walked a tightrope between pure science and theology. LeMaitre's remarkable research shook the foundations of thought in both the hallowed halls of Science and the citadels of power within the Vatican.

An extraordinary biography!

John Farrell's fascinating and compelling biography of the Belgian priest who one-upped Einstein and laid the foundation of new branch of science is simply wonderful. Written with a vibrancy that is uncommon for scientific biographies, Farrell has brought forth a true-life story of an unlikely hero who looked to the stars and found the secret of the universe. It doesn't get better than this. VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!