Georges Lemaître, Belgian priest, astronomer and author of the expanding universe theory

Father Georges Lemaître explains the Big Bang theory to Pope Pius XII. The Belgian priest Georges Lemaître was an astronomer and mathematician, a doctor of sciences, a professor of astrophysics, who worked at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, became the author of the theory of the expanding Universe and made a great contribution to the development of the Big Bang theory. Interestingly, the very term "Big Bang" was coined by atheists who were criticising the theory. Lemaître was a member of the prestigious American Philosophical Society and of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, which he came to head in 1960. Strange as it may seem, he took up astronomy and computational mathematics only after finishing a Jesuit college. Quite possibly, at the Pontifical Academy Lemaître crossed paths with Max Planck, who for a time was likewise a member of the Pontifical scientific body.