Georges Lemaître, Abbé

Lemaître, Georges, Abbé (zhôrzh, äbāˈ ləmĕtˈrə) [key], 1894–1966, Belgian astrophysicist, mathematician, and Catholic priest. In 1927 he became professor of astrophysics at the Univ. of Louvain and proposed the big-bang theory to help link Einstein's relativity theory to the observed evidence of an expanding universe. He also did research on cosmic rays and the three-body problem. His works include Discussion sur l'évolution de l'univers (1933) and L'Hypothèse de l'atome primitif (1946).

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