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The Google search engine pays homage on Tuesday to Georges Lemaître (July 17, 1894 – June 20, 1966) by dedicating one of his famous "doodle" to this priest astrophysicist Carolo who is considered as "father of the Big Bang"
Born in Charleroi on July 17, 1894, Georges Lemaître simultaneously embraces a scientific and ecclesiastical career after the First World War. In turn, he graduated as a physicist-mathematician at the Catholic University of Louvain (UCL), followed religious formations (he was ordained a priest in 1923) and completed his scientific career abroad (University of Cambridge, MIT)
Back in Belgium in 1925, he accepted a post of lecturer at UCL where he began his revolutionary research. In 1927, while the debate on the creation of the Universe divides theologians and scientists more than ever, Georges Lemaître proposes a cosmological model that affirms the physical expansion of the universe. This vision – according to which the more a galaxy is distant, the more it moves away quickly – is diametrically opposed to that of many of its peers who support the thesis of a "static universe."
Four years later, he published the article that will dynamite the beliefs of the time and will make it pbad to posterity: the "theory of the primitive atom". According to this hypothesis advanced in 1931, the origin of the universe was triggered by the explosion of highly condensed matter. This reasoning will sometimes be endorsed, sometimes mocked. In 1949, the British Fred Hoyle ironically lend him the nickname of … "The Big Bang Theory."
In 1951, Pope Pius XII sees in this theory the evidence of the existence of God. But Georges Lemaitre strongly refutes any scientific explanation to the deity, denying at the same time any link between his research and his beliefs. "Faithful to the conception of Saint Thomas Aquinas, he makes the distinction between the 'beginning', physical concept, and the 'creation', philosophical and theological concept," notes the physicist and philosopher of science at the same time. University of Namur, Dominique Lambert, in the book he devoted to the character ("An atom of the universe: the life and work of Georges Lemaître", ed.)
For his discoveries, Georges Lemaître has received numerous awards, including the Jules Janssen Prize in 1936, the highest prize awarded by the Société astronomique de France (SAF). He was also appointed member of the Royal Academy of Sciences and Arts of Belgium in 1941 and was awarded the Eddington Medal by the Royal Society of British Astronomy in 1953.
He died on June 20 1966 from leukemia at the age of 71.
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