Fred Hoyle's Universe

Forsideomslag
OUP Oxford, 26. maj 2005 - 406 sider
Fred Hoyle was one of the most widely acclaimed and colourful scientists of the twentieth century, a down-to-earth Yorkshireman who combined a brilliant scientific mind with a relish for communication and controversy.Best known for his steady-state theory of cosmology, he described a universe with both an infinite past and an infinite future. He coined the phrase 'big bang' to describe the main competing theory, and sustained a long-running, sometimes ill-tempered, and typically public debate with his scientific rivals. He showed how the elements are formed by nuclear reactions inside stars, and explained how we are therefore all formed from stardust. He also claimed that diseases fall from the sky,attacked Darwinism, and branded the famous fossil of the feathered Archaeopteryx a fake.Throughout his career, Hoyle played a major role in the popularization of science. Through his radio broadcasts and his highly successful science fiction novels he became a household name, though his outspokenness and support for increasingly outlandish causes later in life at times antagonized the scientific community.Jane Gregory builds up a vivid picture of Hoyle's role in the ideas, the organization, and the popularization of astronomy in post-war Britain, and provides a fascinating examination of the relationship between a maverick scientist, the scientific establishment, and the public. Through the life of Hoyle, this book chronicles the triumphs, jealousies, rewards, and feuds of a rapidly developing scientific field, in a narrative animated by a cast of colourful astronomers, keeping secrets, losingtheir tempers, and building their careers here on Earth while contemplating the nature of the stars.
 

Indhold

1 Coming to light
1
2 Hut no 2
19
3 Into the limelight
36
4 New world
58
5 Under fire
78
6 New Genesis
94
7 Eclipsed
111
8 Fighting for space
129
12 The end of the beginning
208
13 The Astronomer Hoyle
228
14 The beginning of the end
246
15 On the loose
266
16 Apocalyptic visions
283
17 Evolution on trial
302
18 A new cosmology
321
References
342

9 Storm clouds
147
10 Dear Mr Hogg
164
11 His institute
186

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Om forfatteren (2005)

Jane Gregory is Lecturer in Science Communication and Science Policy at University College London. Her PhD thesis, 'Fred Hoyle and the popularization of cosmology' (1998), uses Hoyle as a case study to illuminate the social role of popularization within science. Dr Gregory is coauthor of three published books: Communicating Science - a handbook (with Michael Shortland, Longman, 1991); the IoP Handbook of Science Communication (with Steve Miller and Shirley Earl, 1998); and Science in Public - communication, culture, and credibility (with Steve Miller, Plenum, 1998).

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