He has remained at Princeton ever since, becoming Einstein Professor of Science in 1984. Peebles has made a number of contributions to modern cosmology. In 1965, in collaboration with Robert Dicke, he made the important prediction that a background radiation should be detectable as a remnant of the big bang.
Cosmologists ask if the universe is 'open' or 'closed'.
This latter factor is the mass density needed just to halt the universe's expansion. As Peebles's problem seemed to have no solution in the standard model of the big bang, it has been left to astronomers such as Alan Guth to propose alternative foundations based on an inflationary model. All rights reserved.