Einstein's cosmology review of 1933: a new perspective on the Einstein-de Sitter model of the cosmos

Abstract

We present a first English translation and analysis of a little-known review of relativistic cosmology written by Albert Einstein in late 1932. The article, which was published in 1933 in a book of Einstein papers translated into French, contains a substantial review of static and dynamic relativistic models of the cosmos, culminating in a discussion of the Einstein-de Sitter model. The article offers a valuable contemporaneous insight into Einstein's cosmology in the 1930s and confirms that his interest lay in the development of the simplest model of the cosmos that could account for observation, rather than an exploration of all possible cosmic models. The article also confirms that Einstein did not believe that simplistic relativistic models could give an accurate description of the early universe.Comment: Accepted for publication in the European Physical Journal (H). Includes an English translation of a little-known review of cosmology written by Albert Einstein in 1933. 20 pages, 4 figure