Biography

June 24, 1915 · Bingley, Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, UK

August 20, 2001 · Bournemouth, Dorset, England, UK

Frederick Hoyle

Astronomer and college professor.

Coined the term "big bang" to descibe the theory that the universe resulted from an explosion of extremely dense matter. He did not believe this theory and used the term disparagingly.

He was Plumian Professor of astronomy and experimental philosophy at Cambridge University in England, and director of the Cambridge Institute of Theoretical Astronomy, which he founded. He was famous as a science popularizer and a little less famous as a novelist; his novels include ?The Black Cloud" (1957), in which a gas cloud from outer space turns out to be sentient; "Fifth Planet" (1963, written with his son Geoffrey Hoyle); "The Inferno" (1973); and "The Incandescent Ones" (1977).

In 1957 he, Geoffrey Burbidge, Margaret Burbidge and William Fowler published a paper in the "Reviews of Modern Physics" which demonstrated how elements are synthesized in the nuclear reactors of stars. In 1983 Fowler received the Nobel Prize in physics for his role in the collaboration.

[9/9/1979, in "The Observer"] Space isn't remote at all. It's only an hour's drive away if your car could go straight upwards.

I don't see the logic of rejecting data just because they seem incredible [ . . . ] the establishment defends itself by complicating everything to the point of incomprehensibility.