Of course, it would have been even more exciting if Einstein had trusted his original equations and simply announced that his general theory of relativity predicted that the universe is expanding. If he had done that, then Hubble's confirmation of the expansion more than a decade later would have had as great an impact as when Eddington confirmed his prediction of how the sun's gravity would bend rays of light. The Big Bang might have been named the Einstein Bang, and it would have gone down in history, as well as in the popular imagination, as one of the most fascinating theoretical discoveries of modern physics.52
The quote highlights how the historical narrative of scientific discoveries could have changed dramatically if Albert Einstein had confidently presented his general theory of relativity as predicting an expanding universe. This early announcement could have aligned with Hubble's later findings, making it equally monumental compared to Eddington's validation of Einstein's predictions regarding light's behavior in a gravitational field.
If Einstein had taken this bold step, the Big Bang theory might have been named after him, forever altering its place in scientific history and popular culture. Such a scenario suggests that the timing and confidence in scientific communication can significantly shape the legacy of scientific theories and their acceptance in society.
