# Georges Lemaître

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Georges Lemaître
Sculpture of Lemaître
Born17 July 1894
Died20 June 1966 (aged 71)
Leuven, Belgium
NationalityBelgian
Alma materCatholic University of Leuven
St Edmund's House, Cambridge
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Known forTheory of the expansion of the universe
Big Bang theory
Lemaître coordinates
AwardsFrancqui Prize (1934)
Eddington Medal (1953)
Scientific career
FieldsCosmology
Astrophysics Mathematics
InstitutionsCatholic University of Leuven
Doctoral advisorCharles Jean de la Vallée-Poussin (Leuven)
Arthur Eddington (Cambridge)
Harlow Shapley (MIT)
Doctoral studentsLouis Philippe Bouckaert, Rene van der Borght
Signature

Monsignor Georges Lemaître (Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître, 17 July 1894 – 20 June 1966) was a Belgian priest, astronomer , mathematician and professor of physics at the Catholic University of Louvain.

He was the first person to say the Universe is growing. Some people think it was Edwin Hubble, but that is not correct.[1][2] Lemaître was also the first to make the Hubble's law and the Hubble constant.[3][4][5][6] Lemaître also started what became known as the Big Bang theory of the origin of the Universe. He called it his 'hypothesis of the primeval atom'.[7][8]