Fred Hoyle

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1952 mosaic by Boris Anrep which depicts Fred Hoyle climbing a steeple to the stars.

Sir Fred Hoyle FRS (1915–2001) was a British astronomer, his most enduring contribution to science is his work on explaining stellar fusion. According to some, he should have been a co-recipient of the 1983 Nobel Prize for Physics[1].

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[edit] Steady state

Fred Hoyle was instrumental in developing the steady-state model of the universe. While a valid scientific hypothesis at its conception in the 1940s, evidence stacked up against it in the 1960s, and has been disproved beyond any reasonable doubt since the 1980s. Fred Hoyle (as well as some others, such as Halton Arp) continued to cling to the steady-state model, though, which got increasingly silly as time went on.

Fred Hoyle actually coined the term Big Bang; many say it was done in jest to ridicule the theory, although he has always denied this. It is, in any case, not a particular accurate description, since there was no "bang" or "explosion" involved (no matter how fancy Discovery Channel's animations look).

[edit] It came from outer space!

He was also noted for some rather strange ideas on the subject of evolution and infectious diseases. In his book Evolution from Space: A Theory of Cosmic Creationism (co-written with Chandra Wickramasinghe), it is hypothesised that the Earth is somehow bombarded by a steady stream of extra-terrestrial life, and that this contribution to the planet's gene-pool is fundamental in evolution. In Lifecloud, Diseases from Space (also co-written with Chandra Wickramasinghe), this idea is taken a step further, where it's claimed that certain infectious diseases, such as the black death or Spanish flu, were actually caused by this extra-terrestrial life. In Norman Cantor's book In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made, a chapter is devoted to this nonsense idea.

[edit] SciFi

Hoyle had a taste for science fiction, and found time to write some himself. His television series A for Andromeda was considered a success, but his play Rockets in Ursa Major had only one professional production, to lacklustre audiences.

[edit] See also

[edit] Footnotes

  1. http://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/oct/03/fred-hoyle-nobel-prize/print
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