General Relativity and Modern Cosmology

일반상대성이론과 현대우주론

We describe relations between modern cosmology and general relativity in the historical context. We reveal some ironies imbedded in Einstein's final correction of his gravitational field equation in the context of cosmology in 1917 which has apparently opened a new era of modern physical cosmology. The ugly (according to Einstein) correction term was introduced only to build a static cosmology which turns out to be in flat contradiction with observation. Somehow, however, it is the correction term which has saved the modern cosmology from the genuine creativity of nature continuously revealed by astronomical observations. Whether the present precision cosmology is also a correct one is often ignored by the practitioners but still a pressing open question left for future theoretical and observational pursuits.