Olber's paradox
The puzzle of why the night sky is not as uniformly bright as the surface
of the Sun if, as used to be assumed, the universe is infinitely large and
filled uniformly with stars. It can be traced as far back as Johannes Kepler
in 1610, was discussed by Edmond Halley
and Philippe Loys de Chéseaux in the 18th century, but wasn't popularized
as a paradox until Heinrich Olbers took up the
issue in the 19th century. It is completely resolved in the standard Big
Bang cosmology, according to which the universe has a finite age (providing
a horizon beyond which we can't see) and contains a finite number of stars.
Related category
• COSMOLOGY
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