On Sun, Feb 2, 2025 at 3:47 AM Alan Grayson <agrayson2...@gmail.com> wrote:
*> Einstein claimed that when his GR field equations predicted an > explanding universe when he believed in the Steady State theory, he added > the CC to GR to make it consistent with his belief. But I recall a remark > by Vic Stenger that the constant could have arisen naturally as the > constant in an indefinite integral. Is there any substance to Stenger's > claim? * > *General Relativity remains consistent if the value of the cosmological constant is zero, but it is also consistent if it is non zero; however if it's zero then the universe would have to be either expanding or contracting, and if we take thermodynamics into consideration we would have to conclude that it is expanding not contracting. At the time astronomers thought the universe was stable and Einstein thought that making the cosmological constant nonzero would make it so, but it turned out that wouldn't work very well, the universe would only be semi-stable like a pencil balancing on its point, the slightest perturbation would make it fall in one direction or another.* *That's why Einstein thought that sticking in the cosmological constant into his beautiful equations was the greatest blunder of his life; if he had just believed what his equations were telling him he could have predicted that the universe was expanding 10 years before astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered that it was. * *John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis <https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis>* 4vu -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv07UM-9B4OHi5oJWTuCpgRHLQTP%2BgohoBkG%2Bk7z-nJQxw%40mail.gmail.com.
