With reference to the article entitled ‘Cosmological crisis: Scientists to discuss new discoveries’, (The Sunday Times of Malta, March 17), it may be appropriate to mention, additionally, the contribution of the Belgian Fr Georges Lemaître (1894-1966) to this research. He was a priest and a professor of physics at the Catholic University of Leuven.

The presently-held cosmological model of the universe assumes that about 13.75 billion years ago an explosive event known as the Big Bang occurred from a point of infinite density and infinite temperature in which all mass and energy were concentrated.

In 1927 Fr Lemaître suggested the principal foundations of an expanding universe model which included the hypothesis of the ‘primeval atom’. However, there was not enough data to support this model. Later, by 1929 astronomers Vesto Slipher and Edwin Hubble among others, provided support for this model through their observations. This model is called the Lemaître universe, after its proponent, and contains a cosmological constant term.

Quite a few scientists, nonetheless, believe that there are limitations to this theory and still do not know why the Big Bang took place.