any intent of extra editing: Block thought that the “©©1–n” in the letter should be read as “©©1–72” because of the way the symbol “n” was written. He also interpreted the text as saying that Lemaître was given freedom to translate only the first seventy-two paragraphs of his paper. He further concluded that paragraph seventy-three was precisely Lemaître’s equation determining the value of the Hubble constant. None of these was convincing. (See Livio 2011 for a discussion.)

in the minutes of the council: RAS 1931.

The second piece of evidence: RAS, RAS correspondence 1931.

“The Expanding Universe”: Lemaître 1931b.

“Dinner was a little late”: Bondi 1990, p. 191.