A tale of two scientists

Laura Hiscott reviews Flashes of Creation: George Gamow, Fred Hoyle, and the Great Big Bang Debate by Paul Halpern.

Steady-State theory and the cosmological controversy

The presently accepted big-bang model of the universe emerged during the period 1930-1970, following a road that was anything but smooth. By 1950 the essential features of the big-bang theory were established by George Gamow and his collaborators, and yet the theory failed to win recognition. A major reason was that the big-bang picture of the evolving universe was challenged by the radically different picture of a steady-state universe favoured by Fred Hoyle and others. By the late 1950s there was no convincing reason to adopt one theory over the other. Out of the epic controversy between the two incompatible world models arose our modern view of the universe. Although the classical steady-state model was abandoned in the mid-1960s, attempts to modify it can be followed up to the present.

Extraterrestrial Microfossils in Meteorites and the Panspermia Hypothesis

I review the experiments by Stanley Miller and Sidney Fox on the production of amino acids and unicellular forms under primitive terrestrial atmosphere conditions. I continue with a review of the evidence for and against unicellular organisms in the Orgueil meteorite and the ALH84001 martian meteorite. I conclude that the evidence argues against the panspermia hypothesis of Fred Hoyle and Nalin Chandra Wickramasinghe.

The Battle for the Cosmos!

We now know the universe began with the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago, but for several years debate raged between the supporters of the Big Bang theory led by George Gamow and supporters of the Steady State theory led by Fred Hoyle. Hoyle showed that the elements were synthesized in the stars, not in the Big Bang as Gamow believed. But Gamow’s colleagues Alpher and Herman predicted the existence of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) created immediately after the Big Bang. The CMB was discovered by Penzias and Wilson and this provided the crucial evidence that the Big Bang theory is correct. The CMB has since been studied in detail by a series of space probes.

Cosmic Matter Creation from Viscous Energy Dissipation: A Resurrection of Fred Hoyle’s Dream

Fred Hoyle is known as creator of the so-called “steady state universe” which latter, although permanently expanding, does not change its state of matter, especially keeping its density constant. To achieve this virtue Hoyle introduced into the energy-momentum tensor of the GRT field equations a term derived from a so-called ad-hoc creation field astonishingly leading to field equations very similar to the ones already developed by Tolman when introducing energy sources connected with viscous dissipation forces acting upon dust-like cosmic matter [1]. In this article here we shall again study the action of viscous forces in cosmic baryonic matter and shall boil it down to volume viscosity contributions to the viscous stress tensor in a universe with a compressible Hubble flow. Assuming that by collisions of any kind the energy of the differential Hubble drift between two collision points of cosmic matter particles, seen in the non-inertial rest frames of moving particles, is randomized and converted into thermal energy, one can then show with the help of a kinetic transport equation that during the cosmic expansion permanently thermal energy is generated leading to the result that the matter temperature, instead of falling-off, is linearly increasing with the scale of the universe. This not only questions the standard use of the model of pressure-free, dust-like matter in the universe, but furthermore indicates the possibility of an asymptotic cosmic-ray-like matter state including the possibility of matter creation by pair production.

“All That Matter ... in One Big Bang ...,” & Other Cosmological Singularities

The first part of this paper contains a brief description of the beginnings of modern cosmology, which, the author will argue, was most likely born in the Year 1912. Some of the pieces of evidence presented here have emerged from recent research in the history of science, and are not usually shared with the general audiences in popular science books. In special, the issue of the correct formulation of the original Big Bang concept, according to the precise words of Fred Hoyle, is discussed. Too often, this point is very deficiently explained (when not just misleadingly) in most of the available generalist literature. Other frequent uses of the same words, Big Bang, as to name the initial singularity of the cosmos, and also whole cosmological models, are then addressed, as evolutions of its original meaning. Quantum and inflationary additions to the celebrated singularity theorems by Penrose, Geroch, Hawking and others led to subsequent results by Borde, Guth and Vilenkin. And corresponding corrections to the Einstein field equations have originated, in particular, R2, f(R), and scalar-tensor gravities, giving rise to a plethora of new singularities. For completeness, an updated table with a classification of the same is given.

“All That Matter ... in One Big Bang ...,” & Other Cosmological Singularities

The first part of this paper contains a brief description of the beginnings of modern cosmology, which, the author will argue, was most likely born in the Year 1912. Some of the pieces of evidence presented here have emerged from recent research in the history of science, and are not usually shared with the general audiences in popular science books. Then, the important issue of the formulation of the original Big Bang concept, in the exact words of Fred Hoyle, is discussed. Too often, this is very deficiently explained (when not just misleadingly) in most of the available generalist literature. Other frequent uses of the same words, Big Bang, as to name the initial singularity of the cosmos, and also whole cosmological models, are then addressed, as evolutions of its original meaning. Quantum and inflationary additions to the celebrated singularity theorems by Penrose, Geroch, Hawking and others led to subsequent results by Borde, Guth and Vilenkin. And corresponding corrections to the Einstein field equations have originated, in particular, R2, f(R), and scalar-tensor gravities, giving rise to a plethora of new singularities. For completeness, an updated table with a classification of the same is given.