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The brief layman's answer: Einstein was troubled because his own theories of relativity did not support the idea of a constant universe, the universe that he preferred to believe existed. His equations showed that a steady state universe would eventually give in to the forces of gravity. He developed the cosmological constant, basically a 'fudge factor', so that his theories could support a steady-state universe. Shortly after, Hubble's redshift observations provided evidence that the universe is expanding, and Einstein called the cosmological constant the worst blunder of his life. Ironically, interest in the cosmological constant is returning, as a possible way of explaining the acceleratingexpansion of the universe.

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13y ago
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12y ago

Without it, his equations implied that the universe was expanding. He didn't think that could be right, so he added a cosmological constant to eliminate the expansion.

Then Hubble (and others) discovered that the universe really was expanding. Oops.

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Q: What led Einstein to hypothesize the cosmological constant?
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