h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi Allen, thought you'd like to know:

Decades ago, Albert Einstein developed some theories of which I am certain you must have heard. One of those theories was an equation that spoke to the ultimate fate of the universe. If the answer came out '1.00000'; the universe was stable; if < 1.00000, it would contract and collapse someday (perhaps to start again); if > 1.00000, it would be an expanding universe, doomed to a slow, cold death.

He was so much in favor of stability that, when several scientists wrote to say that they plugged in the values and found an expanding universe, he re-wrote it to include a 'cosmological constant' that he hoped would balance it back to 1.00000. Later, measurement of the red-shift that proves all stars are moving away from all other stars to quickly to ever succumb to gravity, he called adding the 'constant' the dumbest thing he ever did.

Physicists are still stuck with the 'cosmological constant', reasoning that it may still exist, even if it isn't enough to counteract the expansion of the universe.

You may also be interested to know that Black Holes are not so strong that nothing escapes their pull. The eminent Stephen Hawking postulated that they were, years ago (and proved it mathematically), only to later contradict himself and prove that some bits of energy do escape the pull of the immense gravity they produce.

Food for thought.