The Eternal Universe Strikes Back

It may seem strange to us today, but many physicists found the Big Bang hard to swallow. Perhaps there were still echoes of Einstein's blunt appraisal: “The idea makes no sense.” Eddington in an influential paper of 1931, hence after Hubble's discovery, wrote: “Philosophically, the notion of a beginning of the present order of Nature is repugnant to me.”