Book - 8

Today I don’t wish to talk about any particular book but some science fiction written by Sir Fred Hoyle, as he is no more; he died last month. Born in 1915 in England, he was a mathematician and an astronomer. He was knighted in 1972. 

Hoyle was a proponent of steady-state universe or continuous-creation universe, according to which universe remains in a steady state, with galaxies always at the same density in space.  He agreed that the galaxies are receding and the universe is expanding but according to him new galaxies are continuously forming among the old ones. There is no detection of creation of new matter. According to Hoyle the new material is too little to be detected by our instruments. This theory also raised some questions: Where does this new matter come from?  What happens to the law of conservation of Mass and Energy? He chided the earlier theory proposed by Belgian mathematician Lemaître and elaborated by George Gamov—that all the matter came from Cosmic egg—calling it a Big Bang. But the name stuck and the Big Bang is now widely accepted as correct theory.

Hoyle was critical of Darwin's Origin of species and lately advocated that earlier forms of life were carried through space on comets and these primitive forms of life found their way to earth originating life here: Panspermia theory. But if life came on earth from outer space then how it began in the outer space in the first place is not clear.

Hoyle was a scientist who also wrote science fiction. It is good and worth reading. Some of his science fiction books are:-
1. The Black Cloud
2. October the First is Too Late
3. Fifth Planet
4. Seven Steps to the Sun
5. The Inferno
6. Into Deepest Space

The future may not remember him for his theories or the books that he wrote explaining them. But there is no doubt that he will always be remembered as the best science fiction writer among the scientists.