Model universe developed in 1922 by the Russian meteorologist and mathematician Aleksandr Friedmann (18881925).
He believed that Albert Einstein 's general theory of relativity required a theory of the universe in motion, as opposed to the static universe that scientists until then had proposed. He hypothesized a big bang followed by expansion, then contraction and an eventual big crunch. His model supposes a closed universe, but similar solutions involve an open universe (which expands infinitely) or a flat universe (in which expansion continues infinitely but gradually approaches a rate of zero). See also Edwin P. Hubble .