The Hamburg Connection

Abstract

In the mid-1920s Nernst’s hypothesis of a universe filled with zero-point radiation was considered within the framework of the static cosmological model that Einstein had suggested in 1917. With this work quantum theory was introduced into relativistic cosmology for the first time, but the result was disappointing. Wolfgang Pauli and other leading physicists, including Einstein, maintained that zero-point energy could be ascribed to material systems only. When it turned up in the free electromagnetic field, it was as a mathematical artefact. Nernst’s hypothesis thus appeared to be a blind alley.