An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics

A theoretical model in which the → cosmological constant plays a crucial role by allowing an initial phase that is identical to the Einstein static Universe. After an arbitrarily long time, the Universe begins to expand. The difficulty with this model is that the initiation of galaxy formation may actually cause a collapse rather than initiate an → expansion of the Universe.

See also: → Eddington limit; Lemaître in honor of
Georges-Henri Lemaître (1894-1966), a Belgian Roman Catholic priest, who
first proposed the Big Bang theory; → universe.