Fred Hoyle’s Universe – Jane Gregory ****

Fred Hoyle, the theoretical astronomer who came to fame in the 1950s with both his theory of the production of the elements in stars (since widely adopted) and his collaboration in the steady state theory of the universe (since abandoned for the “big bang” that Hoyle himself named) is a natural for a science biography. It’s not amazing that there have been two in the past few months – it’s rather more amazing that it has taken so long.

In photographs, Hoyle looks solidly old fashioned, but his Yorkshire temperament, dramatic imagination and unparalleled ability to communicate scientific ideas to non-scientists broke the stuffy mould of 1950s science.

Like Simon Mitton’s competing Fred Hoyle: A Life in Science, this is a book that could have been a little better. Jane Gregory, like Mitton, is an academic, and Hoyle’s story needs a good journalist to make the most of it. Having said that, Gregory does a slightly better job. There’s more feeling for the personal tensions between the players, and a little more of the science (though yet again this is skipped over in a way that a Singh or Gribbin never would – we often get just a bald statement that (for instance) those who supported the Big Bang expected to find a low level of cosmic background radiation, without any explanation of why). Gregory also gives a more rounded picture. She discusses Hoyle’s fiction in some detail, which Mitton only gives a passing mention. This really is important, because Hoyle’s popular writing (both fiction and non-fiction) is a major part of what makes him different from most other scientists. The downside of her greater thoroughness is that she seems to relish the bureaucratic details of grant applications and departmental memos – sometimes a little judicious skipping is necessary.

The least appealing side of Gregory’s version is a rather cold approach to many of the events in Hoyle’s life. She may give more feeling for the venom felt by rival Martin Ryle, but when describing what Hoyle did in life, as opposed to his work, the text is rather hollow, reminiscent of a school essay rather than good biography.

Not a perfect book then, but if you are only going to buy one biography of Fred Hoyle, this is probably the best choice.

Hardback:

Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you

Review by Brian Clegg

Comments

The Language of Mathematics - Raúl Rojas ***

One of the biggest developments in the history of maths was moving from describing relationships and functions with words to using symbols. This interesting little book traces the origins of a whole range of symbols from those familiar to all, to the more obscure squiggles used in logic and elsewhere. On the whole Raúl Rojas does a good job of filling in some historical detail, if in what is generally a fairly dry fashion. We get to trace what was often a bumpy path as different symbols were employed (particularly, for example, for division and multiplication, where several still remain in use), but usually, gradually, standards were adopted. This feels better as a reference, to dip into if you want to find out about a specific symbol, rather than an interesting end to end read. Rojas tells us the sections are designed to be read in any order, which means that there is some overlap of text - it feels more like a collection of short essays or blog posts that he couldn't be bothered ...

Target Earth – Govert Schilling *****

I was biased in favour of this great little book even before I started to read it, simply because it’s so short. I’m sure that a lot of people who buy popular science books just want an overview and taster of a subject that’s brand new to them – and that’s likely to work best if the author keeps it short and to the point. Of course, you may want to dig deeper in areas that really interest you, but that’s what Google is for. That basic principle aside, I’m still in awe at how much substance Govert Schilling has managed to cram into this tiny book. It’s essentially about all the things (natural things, I mean, not UFOs or space junk) that can end up on Earth after coming down from outer space. That ranges from the microscopically small particles of cosmic dust that accumulate in our gutters, all the way up to the ten kilometre wide asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. Between these extremes are two topics that we’ve reviewed entire books about recently: meteorites ( The Meteorite Hunt...

The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire - Henry Gee ****

In his last book, Henry Gee impressed with his A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth - this time he zooms in on one very specific aspect of life on Earth - humans - and gives us not just a history, but a prediction of the future - our extinction. The book starts with an entertaining prologue, to an extent bemoaning our obsession with dinosaurs, a story that leads, inexorably towards extinction. This is a fate, Gee points out, that will occur for every species, including our own. We then cover three potential stages of the rise and fall of humanity (the book's title is purposely modelled on Gibbon) - Rise, Fall and Escape. Gee's speciality is palaeontology and in the first section he takes us back to explore as much as we can know from the extremely patchy fossil record of the origins of the human family, the genus Homo and the eventual dominance of Homo sapiens , pushing out any remaining members of other closely related species. As we move onto the Fall section, Gee gives ...

Search This Blog