Georges Lemaître was a Belgian astronomer and physics professor who was most famous for his theory about the expansion of the universe. He was, in fact, the first one to note that our universe is expanding, which later was confirmed by Edwin Hubble. Born on 17 July 1894 in Belgium, today marks the 124th birth anniversary of the physicist. Search giant Google has marked this day by making doodle which shows the stars in the galaxy blinking behind his caricature.

Georges Lemaître studied civil engineering but took a break and became an artillery officer in the Belgian army during the World War I. He got back to studying physics. Years later he graduated in astronomy from the University of Cambridge. Lemaître holds the credits of what we now popularly call the Big Bang Theory- the idea that universe began after an explosion of a single particle. He had published this idea of the expanding universe in the year 1925. Although his initial research was not exactly Big Bang, he researched more on the universe starting from a single atom.

Lemaître's lectures had been attended by renowned scientists and scholars of that time. "This is the most beautiful and satisfactory explanation of creation to which I ever listened," Albert Einstein had said on one of his lectures. His descriptions of the universe are listed as ‘burst of fireworks.' Just before his death, he had also discovered the existence of cosmic microwave background radiation. He passed away in the year 1966 but his theories have been the base of many studies on the formation of the universe.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 17, 2018 12:11 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).