DANILO MIRANDA RODRIGUES

The present proposal consists of a heuristic analysis of the pioneering works of the so-called "scientific cosmology". From the point of view of hypotheses, adopted models and problem solving techniques, the cosmology formulated by Einstein and Friedman is quite different from those developed until the second half of the 19th century. The main distinction consists in the description of the universe as a fluid, subject to Boltzmann's laws of statistical mechanics, some elements associated with the origin of Einstein's model seem to be contained in his doctoral thesis, which uses modern statistical mechanics. Such a description contributed to make possible the investigation about the expansion of the Universe, its temporal origin and other aspects of its dynamics. In Friedman we find the first scientific calculation of the age of the universe, which was not even found in the astronomical speculations of the previous century. We also propose to investigate social, psychological and other elements that may have influenced the models mentioned above, since such factors are, to some extent, identifiable through a heuristic analysis.