Word: cosmologists
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Albert Einstein, physicist, mathematician, cosmologist and grandfather of atomic energy, deplores the security system that the U.S. Government has established to cope with the atomic age. Last week, in a letter to the Reporter magazine, Professor Einstein wrote: "If I would be a young man again and had to decide how to make my living, I would not try to become a scientist or scholar or teacher. I would rather choose to be a plumber or a peddler in the hope to find that modest degree of independence still available under present circumstances...
...reasoning about the universe, said Cosmologist Thomas Gold, "we must be on our guard against that evil intruder 'common sense.' " Common sense, Gold pointed out, is derived from human experience with objects of moderate size such as the human body and the solar system. Scientists now know that very small objects (i.e., subatomic particles) behave in a non-commonsensical way. Very large objects may behave unreasonably...
Explosive Model. Cosmologists believe that the best way to study the universe is to set up a theoretical "model" of it and then find out by observation whether the model matches the real universe. Cambridge Cosmologist Dennis W. Sciama explained that since the megaphysical laws are largely unknown, cosmologists must test their models against the few facts they do possess. One set of facts they are reasonably sure of: the universe "is made of a fairly uniform mixture of chemical elements; 95% is hydrogen, nearly 5% is helium formed in stars. The small remainder is the heavier elements from lithium...
Without this sense of contingency, "there isn't any springboard for theistic metaphysics * ...After all, how would one expect [traditional metaphysics] to soften up a monolithic materialist like H. G. Wells, or an anti-humanist like Picasso, or a happy naturalist like British Cosmologist Fred Hoyle...
TIME erred in implying that Cosmologists Alpher and Herman did say so. All the distant galaxies appear to be receding from the earth. This is hard to explain on the basis of one central explosion, unless the earth should happen to be at the point from which the galaxies are receding. No cosmologist, of course, believes that this is the case. A better explanation is that space itself is expanding, making each galaxy move away from the others...