ANNALS ANNALES - Academia Oamenilor de Stiinta din Romania

44 Mărgărit Pavelescu
He passed the last twenty years to the Institute of Advanced Studies, from Princeton,
New Jersey, where it has had again only a research norm [1].
On the basis of the general theory of relativity, AE accounted for the previously
unexplained variations in the orbital motion of the planets and predicted the bending
of starlight in the vicinity of a massive body such as the sun. The confirmation of this
latter phenomenon during an eclipse of the sun in 1919 became a media event and
AE's fame spread worldwide.
For the rest of his life AE devoted considerable time to generalizing his theory even
more. His last effort, the unified field theory, which was not entirely successful, was
an attempt to understand all physical interactions—including electromagnetic
interactions and weak and strong interactions—in terms of the modification of the
geometry of space-time between interacting entities.
Most of AE's colleagues felt that these efforts were misguided. Between 1915 and
1930 the mainstream of physics was in developing a new conception of the
fundamental character of matter, known as quantum theory.
This theory contained the feature of wave-particle duality (light exhibits the properties
of a particle, as well as of a wave) that AE had earlier urged as necessary, as well as
the uncertainty principle, which states that precision in measuring processes is
limited. Additionally, it contained a novel rejection, at a fundamental level, of the
notion of strict causality. AE, however, did not accept such notions and remained
critic of these developments until the end of his life.
―God,‖ Einstein once said, ―does not play dice with the world.‖
This seams to show that AE reached, probably, his level of competence, which could
not be overtaken!
The direction in which one goes with the theory of AE is based on the idea that space
and time may form a closed surface, therefore finite, without boundaries and limits in
which is imbedded the incertitude principle for the early phases of the universe [3],
[4]. This idea has deep implication concerning the role of the God in universe
problems.
Owing to the success of scientific theories in events describing, some philosophers
arrived at the conclusion that the God allowed to the universe to evolve accordingly
with a set of laws and does not intervene in universe in order to disestablish these
laws. As long as the universe has had a beginning, the Big Bang therefore, we could
say that it was a Creator!
But if the universe is without limits in space and time, therefore completely
independent, it has not a beginning or an end; simply it exists from ever. In this case
however, it does not justify the concept of God, especially because it eliminated the
answer to the question: who created the God and what he did before to the origin
moment of the universe [4]?!
Connected by this debate may be signalized the interest of the Catholic Church for
the new scientific theories. So, the Vatican in 1981 organized to Rome an
international conference at which attended high prelates and scientists in order to
make efficacious consulting in matter of cosmology.
In order to escape a potential conflict of opinions, as it happened on Galileo time, the
Church, in face of evidence, made known that accepts the idea that the universe has
an oldest of 15 billions of years instead of 6000 years from Bible and, generally, are
acceptable all explanations connected by its genesis.