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GP: Fachverband Geschichte der Physik

GP 10: Sowjetunion

GP 10.2: Talk

Wednesday, March 16, 2011, 10:00–10:25, HSZ 204

The Soviet dialectical-materialist view of the Universe and the Big Bang theory (1931-1991) — •Mauro Stenico — Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe Universität, Frankfurt am Main

Starting from 1929-31, the Soviet government began to impose several restrictions upon Russian scientific community: scientists had to attain to the distinction between "proletarian" and the "bad reactionary" science of the West, whose cosmological expression was at the time the theory of the expanding universe. Mathematically formulated by Alexander Friedmann (1922) and physically developed by Georges Lemaître (1927), the theory was interpreted as the last manifestation of the decadent Western bourgeoisie, which had proposed this "fideistic" tale to save divine Creationism for keeping on exploiting proletariat thanks to its submission to "religious opium". After the war, ideological influence on Soviet cosmology was even stronger: in 1946 Stalin decided for a final depuration of Soviet culture. In 1947, Andrej Zhdanov began the official campaign against *Western* dynamical cosmology. The analysis of Soviet astronomical publications reveals a new trend during the de-stalinization era, when Russian astronomers began to publish in favor of the Big Bang theory and to ask for international collaboration. Starting from the Sixties, the theory was scientifically analyzed even in the USSR and Soviet cosmologists contributed to it in a very fruitful way.