The Outsider
Conflict in the Cosmos is a warm appreciation and cogent assessment of the scientific life of the British astrophysicist Fred Hoyle. Hoyle, who died in 2000, was one of the most capable and controversial theorists of the 20th century, contributing provocatively to a wide range of problem areas, from stellar structure and the origin and evolution of the chemical elements to the large-scale structure and history of the universe.
The author, astronomer Simon Mitton, is at his best when introducing and then explaining in simple language the scientific underpinnings of Hoyle's theories. He also clearly recounts Hoyle's life, training and career, helping the reader to better appreciate the world of Cambridge academics.
Born in Yorkshire in 1915, the son of a woolens merchant and a former schoolteacher, Fred Hoyle was sent to a local \"Dame\" school (a private one-room school with a single teacher) and then to elementary schools, where he distinguished himself first by his truancy. His talents emerged as he was slowly attracted to science, and then he rapidly went straight to the top of whatever academic ladder was available to him. In 1933 he entered Emmanuel College at the University of Cambridge, and his life was centered there for more than 39 years, with the significant exception of his wartime service, which involved working on the design of radar systems and taking lengthy research trips to America.
Hoyle rose from a mathematics lectureship to assume the Plumian Professorship of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy in 1957, holding that position until his heated and painful resignation in 1972, when he also terminated his relations with the Institute of Theoretical Astronomy, which he had founded and directed for six years. During this span of years, Hoyle had become an international figure in science and enjoyed a great deal of public visibility through his radio broadcasts and his popular science and science fiction writings. He had also become a power broker in the British scientific establishment. Yet he remained very much an outsider, accumulated passionate enemies and espoused unpopular theories.
As a result, much has been written about Hoyle; his autobiography is extensive, and he and his colleagues wrote numerous essays covering aspects of his scientific life. The book under review here is the first significant biographical effort by a witness who was not a colleague.
Simon Mitton is well known as the science director at Cambridge University Press and as author and coauthor of many popular works on astronomy.
This book is more than just a series of explanations of current astronomical theories and research tools, however. Dr. Tyson injects a great deal of historical perspective as well as his own personality and humor throughout the narrative, which is what really makes the difference between text that would otherwise be just informative and a book that is engaging and entertaining to read. For example, when discussing how astronomers use the different regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, he writes, "Superman, with his x-ray vision, has no special advantage over modern-day scientists
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The next theory that he disproved was the “Primordial Soup Theory”. Sir Fred Hoyle scoffed at the ridiculous atheistic notion when he said, “The notion that a living cell could be arrived at by chance in a primordial organic soup here on earth is evidently nonsense of a high order.” “There was no primeval soup, neither on this planet, nor on any other, and if the beginning of life were not random, life must therefore have been the product of purposeful intelligence” (Donyes
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On the other hand, believers in science take a completely different approach in explaining the origin of the universe. Although there is more than one theory, the most popular today is the concept of the big ba...
Carl G. Hempel was of the most influential proponents of what is now regarded as the classic view of explanation in science. In his work, Philosophy of Natural Science, he created the deductive-nomological model which is the following account of scientific explanation, where an explanation is set out as a formalized argument. This is the principle format for works such as Aristotle’s Physica, Ptolemy’s Almagest, Newton’s Principia and Opticks, Franklin’s Electricity, Lavoisie’s Chemistry, and Lyell’s Geology. Thomas Kuhn calls these achievements Paradigms. Through these paradigms normal science developed. In Kuhn’s book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, he argues that normal science in a way hinders the development of new phenomenon. He says that there must be a change in a paradigm to create a scientific revolution. Throughout this essay I will explain what Hempel’s model consists of and how it relates to Kuhn’s view.
Here, we examine some of the scientific arguments presented by Henry M. Morris in his various publications. As a biology major, I find Morris= writings fascin...
'A discovery so unexpected could only have singular circumstances, for it was not due to an astronomer and the marvelous telescope…was not the work of an optician; it is Mr. Herschel, a [German] musician, to whom we owe the knowledge of this seventh principal planet.' (Hunt, 35)
In the book, Jim Holt interviews people from theologists like Richard Swinburne, to philosophers of science such as Adolf Grunbaum, from theoretical physicists like David Deutsch, Regular physicists such as Steven Weinberg, to Platonist’s like Roger Penrose. In my essay, I have chosen to look at the ideas established by the philosopher Adolf Grunbaum as well as the theologist of Swinburne. Jim Holt describes the exchanges between them as an 'intricate metaphysical ping pong match.' Both of these theologists are very ...
Boyle, Kay. "Astronomer's Wife." Responding to Literature: Stories, Poems, Plays, and Essays. Fourth Edition. Ed. Judith A. Stanford. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2003. 619-623.
It is interesting to notice how two scientists who were, at the same time, of science and philosophers (Stefan Odobleja and Norbert Wiener) arrived at very close conclusions in their subjects within a decade. They lived and worked on so for off meridians, originating from very different media.