Boundless curiosity
Permeated with culture by his family
Attachment characterized the Lemaître family. He loved his mother deeply and shared many holidays with her, taking care of her after his father's death.
Georges Lemaître was born into a bourgeois family, in Charleroi (Belgium), in the heart of an industrial area then very prosperous. His father, who had studied law at the University of Louvain, headed a glassmaking firm.
He received a Christian education, surrounded by a mother and grandparents very attached to their faith. His family also gave him a taste for music and literature. His father and brother Jacques, in particular, were impassioned by the classic authors and music.
Georges Lemaître was a voracious reader in several fields and several languages. He was particularly interested in “borrowed”, words transferred from one language to another.
The four years on the Yser front were a period of major upheaval for Georges Lemaître, a time filled with questioning about himself - and his life. he grew from it. Moreover, he read extensively and in all sorts of domains, for example, exegeses of Léon Bloy on the Holy Scriptures, and Henri Poincaré'sElectricity and Optics. We might suppose that he also read less scientific texts, perhaps even Molière. On leave, he satisfied his thirst for knowledge in Paris as well as at the Swiss Cottage, in La Panne, in the last unoccupied corner of Belgium, where the villa served as an arts centre intended for soldiers.
Georges and Jacques, one year younger, were very close. Their enlistment in August 1914, both as volunteers, bound them together in a very particular way.
Classical studies
At the Jesuit College of the Sacred Heart in Charleroi where, between 1904 and 1910, he pursued his Greco-Latin secondary studies in the humanities, he received a serious scientific formation and a developed knowledge of Greek and Latin and ancient authors, as well as of classical literature and, probably, French theatre. For that matter, his scientific writings show remarkable style and a beautiful command of the French language.
His university studies at Louvain, in the special schools of engineers and the Institute of Philosophy in 1913-1914, then in the Faculty of Science in 1919-1920, subsequently provided him with a culture covering a broad spectrum, ranging from Thomistic philosophy to physics and mechanics, to mathematics, to numerical analysis and calculation, in passing through numerous fields of cosmology and astronomy.
And, finally, between 1920 and 1923, the Seminary in Mechelen provided him with theological skills.
A curious spirit made for research
Once his curiosity was aroused, everything interested Georges Lemaitre. He didn't need something grandiose: a conversation on a particularly interesting subject, the reading of a text, stating a conjecture or enigma, a researcher's unsuccessful research. Once his curiosity was aroused, he would try to prove or eliminate such and such a hypothesis, or seek how to resolve some other quandary.
Erasmus before its time, trips did not frighten him! his journeys began in 1923 with a travelling scholarship enabling him to visit Arthur Eddington at the University of Cambridge (England).
A curious spirit made for research
Once his curiosity was aroused, everything interested Georges Lemaitre. He didn't need something grandiose: a conversation on a particularly interesting subject, the reading of a text, stating a conjecture or enigma, a researcher's unsuccessful research. Once his curiosity was aroused, he would try to prove or eliminate such and such a hypothesis, or seek how to resolve some other quandary.
He was made for research. His intellectual abilities were matched by his determination, and a certain tenacity. He was able to concentrate on a subject for hours and hours. Lastly, he was not afraid of advancing a theory, even if it seemed out of style, whether or not it pleased people was not his area of concern. He thought on his own, without restriction, and enriched himself through exchanges with other scientists.
The university milieu
Georges Lemaître and Louis Bouckaert in togas at the academic year's inauguration. Lemaître is wearing his pontifical collar as member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, as well as his military decorations.
Even if he mainly worked alone, Lemaître liked an entourage, he appreciated and even sought out discussion and exchanges. After courses or work sessions - with his students or assistants, as here in Louvain.
Or at the Majestic, an establishment frequented by Louvainprofessors, a place for meeting and relaxation where all the disciplines came together to discuss the news or culture.
Georges Lemaître was appointed a part-time lecturer at the University of Louvain in October 1925. He taught mathematics and cosmology to students of the Faculty of Sciences and to future engineers, to whom he also gave courses in methodology, the history of mathematics and introduction to philosophy and religion. His lectures were challenging and often beyond his audience's understanding. But he showed a great benevolence in examinations and enjoyed contacts with students.
Along with his teaching, research work and the publication of several articles, from the 1930s on, he was invited to give lectures all over the world and, above all, in the United States. Thus his university and scientific career was really quite busy. But he remained pleasant, far from the pressures contemporary academic generations are subjected to. Researchers could then choose to teach or not, to do a little, or a lot, or no research at all. The quality of the articles prevailed, not their quantity. Researchers could thus focus on thematics which did not belong to their field of specialization. Lastly, when Lemaître initiated his readings of Molière, in the 1950s, he was nearly sixty years old and began to indulge more in what fascinated him personally (numerical analysis and computation, literature, computer science, etc).
The city of Louvain, seat of the University, is also a place for scientific encounters where foreign researchers come to study, where Chinese students are welcomed, where one meets priests in cassocks who teach courses. Lemaître met Father Henri Bosmans, a Jesuit historian of mathematics and sciences who introduced him to the major ancient texts and exhorted him to always go back to the original texts.
Lemaître lived in Louvain, in an apartment on Foch Place which was in fact destroyed in the early days of World WarTwo in May 1940, two steps from a café-establishment frequented by the professors: the Majestic. A meeting place par excellence, a place of relaxation for scientists, where you could talk about everything except the sciences. Colleagues would meet and discuss the most varied questions and, particularly, literature and theatre. It is perhaps there that Georges Lemaître heard of Maurice Garçon's theory involving Molière. And we know that he talked about his own research on Molière with several academics, perhaps at the Majestic too: Adolphe Gesché, then a doctoral student in theology, Paul Rousseau, an economist versed in literature, and of course the novelists: Charles de Trooz, Omer Jodogne, Joseph Hanse, Pierre Grouet and Théophile Hénusse.