The Discovery of the Expansion of the Universe

Abstract

Alexander Friedmann, Carl Wilhelm Wirtz, Vesto Slipher, Knut E. Lundmark, Willem de Sitter, Georges H. Lemaître, and Edwin Hubble all contributed to the discovery of the expansion of the universe. If only two persons are to be ranked as the most important ones for the general acceptance of the expansion of the universe, the historical evidence points at Lemaître and Hubble, and the proper answer to the question, “Who discovered the expansion of the universe?”, is Georges H. Lemaître.