The cosmological constant and cosmological change

JUN 01, 1977

The constant originally proposed by Einstein, and recent ideas on evolutionary processes affecting galaxies, are factors in the latest attempts to discover what type of universe we live in.

DOI: 10.1063/1.3037595

Beatrice M. Tinsley

Is the Universe of infinite extent, or is it a finite system? Will it expand forever, or will it reach some maximum size before turning and collapsing upon itself like an inverse Big Bang? Just a few years ago, models of the conventional Friedman types were showing consistent, albeit tentative, evidence for an open, ever‐expanding Universe. Since then, further data and theory have inevitably conspired to blur the appealing simplicity of that picture. In this article I will show how the Friedman models fare in the light of new developments—particularly the recognition of a whole new class of evolutionary corrections to the properties of distant galaxies (see figure 1), and a proposed reinstatement of Einstein’s disinherited cosmological constant. We shall see that the basic questions, posed above, are still unanswered.

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More about the authors

Beatrice M. Tinsley, Yale University.