Fortnightly Talks: The History of Sir Fred Hoyle

Talk Summary:

Fred Hoyle (1915–2001) was an eclectic, electric and energetic enthusiast in the captivating cosmology dramas of the mid-twentieth century. In the 1930s two of the many cosmic mysteries baffling astronomers were the astrophysical origin of the chemical elements, and the nature of the universe. Fred Hoyle had constructive proposals to both cosmic conundrums by his mid-thirties. In the long run, one of his theories turned out to be correct, with its astounding conclusions about nuclear physics and supernova explosions. Another hypothesis survives in the history books as an intriguing example of conflict and controversy driving new knowledge. In this talk I shall include Hoyle’s wartime adventures in Snowdonia, and the huge corpus of papers on astrobiology he authored with Chandra Wickramasinghe. Hoyle enjoyed controversy: “It is better to be interesting and wrong than boring and right”.

Speaker biography:

Simon Mitton read physics at Oxford, followed by a doctorate at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge in Martin Ryle’s radio astronomy group. He was a member of the Institute of (Theoretical) Astronomy at Cambridge from 1972–1978, and then variously an editor, publishing director and consultant at Cambridge University Press until 2003. He continues to engage in research, publishing articles, academic papers, and books in the history of cosmology in the twentieth century. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and Life Fellow of St Edmund’s College, Cambridge.

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