A priest found the big bang

by Letters Editor · March 29, 2012

Artists impression of the big bang

From Patrick Dacey, Johannesburg

Because of differing timescales that had been allocated to Genesis� creation story, Bishop Usher, a 17th century Irish-Protestant bishop, decided to pinpoint the exact date. After extensive biblical research which included learning the languages of Samaratin, Chaldean and Greek, he concluded that Day 1 began at 6 o�clock, on October 22, 4004 BC.

From 1701 until the early 20th century, this date, representing the beginning of creation, was printed in the front of English bibles. Bishop Usher�s date was probably 100% correct in the assumption that recorded Hebrew history began at a time that coincided with the big bang.

Almost 300 years later, a Catholic priest and professor of astronomy at Louvain University in Belgium, Fr Georges Lemaitre, flew to Pasadena, California, to present his �exploding universe� theory to an eminent group of scientists, including Albert Einstein. �In the beginning we had fireworks of unimaginable beauty,� Fr Lemaitre�s enthused. �We came too late to do more than visualise the splendour of creation�s birthday!�

In 1952, Pope Pius XII endorsed the theory in an address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences: �It would seem that present-day science, with one sweep back across the centuries, has succeeded in bearing witness to the august instant of the primordial Fiat Lux (Let there be Light)��

Fr Lemaitre�s theory was similar to that of the deceased Russian scientist, Alexander Friedmann, but at the time was unaware of Friedmann�s work. Stalin�s anti-religious regime refuted Fr Lemaitre�s theory which many people had linked to Genesis�s creation story.

George Gamow, who had studied under Friedmann at Leningrad University and who had fled to America in the 1930s, added further enlightenment on Fr Lemaitre and Friedmann�s theories. Not so fortunate were two of Gamow�s colleagues, Bronstein and Frederiks, both proponents of the �exploding universe� theory. Bronstein was executed by firing squad and Frederiks perished in a Siberian concentration camp.

In 1953 an American geochemist, Claire Patterson, analysed a meteorite using radioactive dating and concluded that our solar and planetary system formed 4,5 billion years ago, a figure which is widely accepted today.

And in May 1999, after extensive research by two project teams in America, it was found that our universe has been in existence for 14 billion years.