I had a little trouble getting my blog groove back after

the recent hiatus but I had a few thoughts to share this morning so I was going to try. However my blog writing page doesn't look right. The input box is much larger and the toolbar is gone. There are entry fields for URL and MIME Type under the heading Enclosure which leave me feeling clueless. How can I attach pictures or links without the toolbar? Down below there are little instructions about using Control B and Control I which don't work. and I'd prefer the toolbar regardless.

(Comment was saved to note pad Sunday and posted Monday when things were back to normal)

Anyway, here's what I was going to discuss

In the winter of 1998, two separate teams of astronomers in Berkeley, California, made a similar, startling discovery. They were both observing supernovae -- exploding stars visible over great distances -- to see how fast the universe is expanding. In accordance with prevailing scientific wisdom, the astronomers expected to find the rate of expansion to be decreasing, Instead they found it to be increasing -- a discovery which has since "shaken astronomy to its core" (Astronomy, October 1999).

This discovery would have come as no surprise to Georges Lemaitre (1894-1966), a Belgian mathematician and Catholic priest who developed the theory of the Big Bang. Lemaitre described the beginning of the universe as a burst of fireworks, comparing galaxies to the burning embers spreading out in a growing sphere from the center of the burst. He believed this burst of fireworks was the beginning of time, taking place on "a day without yesterday."

After decades of struggle, other scientists came to accept the Big Bang as fact. But while most scientists -- including the mathematician Stephen Hawking -- predicted that gravity would eventually slow down the expansion of the universe and make the universe fall back toward its center, Lemaitre believed that the universe would keep expanding. He argued that the Big Bang was a unique event, while other scientists believed that the universe would shrink to the point of another Big Bang, and so on. The observations made in Berkeley supported Lemaitre's contention that the Big Bang was in fact "a day without yesterday." 'A Day Without Yesterday': Georges Lemaitre & the Big Bang by Mark Midbon, Commonweal (March 24, 2000): 18-19.




Lemaitre proposed the big bang theory in 1927. Einstein first rejected, then grudgingly accepted the theory. In fact the term "big bang" was coined by a Cambridge physicist in the 40's who was proposing an alternative theory. Lemaitre's paper was titled "A homogeneous Universe of constant mass and growing radius accounting for the radial velocity (radial velocity: Velocity along the line of sight toward or away from the observer) of extragalactic nebulae". Big Bang does roll off the tongue a little more easily. By 1966 at the time of Lemaitre's death it was almost universally accepted, but until the 1998 observations physicists were reluctant to accept Lemaitre's conclusion that the Big Bang was a one time event.
When word of the 1998 Berkeley discovery that the universe is expanding at an increasing rate first reached Stephen Hawking, he said it was too preliminary to be taken seriously. Later, he changed his mind. "I have now had more time to consider the observations, and they look quite good," he told Astronomy magazine (October 1999). "This led me to reconsider my theoretical prejudices."