Fred Hoyle

Also known as Sir Fred Hoyle

British astronomer (1915–2001)

AI overview

Fred Hoyle was a British astronomer who lived from 1915 to 2001 and made significant contributions to our understanding of how stars work and how chemical elements form in the universe. His work fundamentally changed astronomy and physics by explaining processes that had previously been mysterious to scientists.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

Person · Open Library

Works: 42

Top works

Frontiers of astronomy (A Signet science library book)
The Nature of the Universe, Revised Edition
Galaxies Nuclei and Quasars
Frontiers of Astronomy
Nicolaus Copernicus

via Open Library + Wikidata

Music · MusicBrainz

Type: Person
Gender: Male
Origin: United Kingdom
Active from: 1915-06-24
Active to: 2001-08-20

Discogs

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Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners: 47
Total plays: 1,319

via Last.fm · Fred Hoyle

Recent publications · Crossref

5 total works indexed

Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of Use, and User Acceptance of Information Technology
· 1989 · cited 43,434x
Colorimetric Method for Determination of Sugars and Related Substances
· 1956 · cited 41,871x
Social Identity Theory and the Organization
· 1989 · cited 31,507x
User Acceptance of Information Technology: Toward A Unified View1
· 2003 · cited 29,679x
User Acceptance of Computer Technology: A Comparison of Two Theoretical Models
· 1989 · cited 16,080x

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Quotes

“We now come to the question of applying the observational tests to earlier theories. These theories were based on the hypothesis that all the matter in the universe was created in one big bang at a particular time in the remote past. It now turns out that... all such theories are in conflict with observational requirements.”
“It is in the world of ideas and in the relation of his brain to the universe itself that the superiority of Man lies. The rise of Man may justly be described as an adventure in ideas.”
“Life cannot have had a random beginning … The trouble is that there are about two thousand enzymes, and the chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in 1040,000, an outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup.”
“The chance that higher life forms might have emerged in this way is comparable with the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein.”
“The notion that not only the biopolymer but the operating program of a living cell could be arrived at by chance in a primordial organic soup here on the Earth is evidently nonsense of a high order.”
“A junkyard contains all the bits and pieces of a Boeing 747, dismembered and in disarray. A whirlwind happens to blow through the yard. What is the chance that after its passage a fully assembled 747, ready to fly, will be found standing there? So small as to be negligible, even if a tornado were to blow through enough junkyards to fill the whole Universe.”

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Wikidata facts

Official website: www.hoyle.org.uk
Image: Fred Hoyle 1967.jpg

Show 4 more facts

Commons category: Fred Hoyle
date of birth: 1915-06-24
date of death: 2001-08-20
name in native language: Fred Hoyle

Sources (1)

wikidata.org

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~33 min read

Article

Sir Fred Hoyle (24 June 1915 – 20 August 2001) was an English astronomer. With Margaret and Geoffrey Burbidge and William Alfred Fowler, he formulated the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis in the influential BFH paper.

He held controversial views on some scientific matters — in particular, in his rejection of the "Big Bang" theory (a term he jokingly coined on BBC Radio, though he later denied doing so in derision) in favour of a "steady-state model", and his promotion of panspermia as the origin of life on Earth.