Interrogating the legend of Einstein's "Biggest Blunder"

TL;DR

This paper investigates the origins of Einstein's claim that introducing the cosmological constant was his 'biggest blunder', finding evidence that he indeed considered it a serious mistake based on his later cosmological work.

Contribution

The study critically examines the legend of Einstein's 'biggest blunder' by analyzing historical and scientific evidence, clarifying its origins and Einstein's views.

Findings

Einstein's later writings support he viewed the cosmological constant as a mistake.

Historical reports align with Einstein's own statements about the term.

The 'biggest blunder' label likely originated from Einstein's own remarks.

Abstract

It is well known that, following the emergence of the first evidence for an expanding universe, Albert Einstein banished the cosmological constant term from his cosmology. Indeed, he is reputed to have labelled the term, originally introduced to the field equations of general relativity in 1917 in order to predict a static universe, his "biggest blunder". However serious doubts about this reported statement have been raised in recent years. In this paper, we interrogate the legend of Einstein's "biggest blunder" statement in the context of our recent studies of Einstein's cosmology in his later years. We find that the remark is highly compatible with Einstein's cosmic models of the 1930s, with his later writings on cosmology, and with independent reports by at least three physicists. We conclude that there is little doubt that Einstein came to view the introduction of the cosmological constant term a serious error and that it is very likely that he labelled the term his "biggest blunder" on at least one occasion. This finding may be of some relevance for those theoreticians today who seek to describe the recently-discovered acceleration in cosmic expansion without the use of a cosmological constant term.