Fred Hoyle, who died on August 20th aged 86, will be remembered as one of the most distinguished and controversial scientists of the 20th century. Soon after the end of the second World War he became widely known both by scientists and the public as one of the originators of a new theory of the universe. He was a fluent writer and speaker and became the main expositor of this new theory of the steady state, or continuous creation, according to which the universe had existed for an infinite past time and would continue infinitely into the future, as opposed to what he styled the "big bang" theory.
As a young man during the second World War, he became friendly with Hermann Bondi and Thomas Gold. The ideas that led to the continuous creation theory were born and in 1948 their historic papers on the theory were published. Although the names of Bondi, Hoyle and Gold are associated with that revolutionary theory, Fred Hoyle's paper was published separately, two months later than the joint one of Bondi and Gold.
The latter had stressed the philosophical aspect of a perfect cosmological principle in which the universe would have a high degree of uniformity not only in space but also in time, thereby evading the scientific problem associated with a beginning in a finite past time. He dealt with the continuous creation of the primordial hydrogen that would be essential to maintain the steady state, and placed the concept within the framework of general relativity.
Although Fred Hoyle was most widely known for cosmological theory, there is little doubt that his most lasting and significant contribution to science concerns the origin of the elements. This theory of nucleogenesis (the build-up of the elements in the hot interiors of stars) was an outstanding scientific landmark of the 1950s. In the development of this theory he collaborated with W.A. Fowler of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, and with Geoffrey and Margaret Burbidge.
The paper, published in an American journal in 1957, has been described as monumental, and the theory has had a cardinal influence on astrophysics. Although there were four authors, it is widely known that the Burbidges contributed the data from their stellar observations and that the core and essence of the paper was the work of Fowler and Fred Hoyle.
Fowler was awarded the Nobel prize for physics in 1983, and why Fred Hoyle was not included in this award remains a mystery hidden in the confidential documents of the Royal Swedish Academy. The editor of the scientific journal Nature suggested that the academy did not wish to be associated with any endorsement of another idea then being promulgated by Fred Hoyle. This was linked to Hoyle's belief that life must be of frequent occurrence in the universe. He argued that the primeval molecules from which life evolved on Earth had been transported from elsewhere in the universe. In itself this idea would not necessarily be rejected as absurd by the scientific community, but he had publicised a further argument that influenza epidemics were associated with the passage of the Earth through certain meteor streams, the particles of which conveyed the virus to Earth. This was dismissed as fictional by nearly all members of the biological and physical scientific disciplines.
Fred Hoyle was a writer of science fiction for over three decades. His most famous novel was October The First Is Too Late, and several, such as The Black Cloud (1957) and A For Andromeda (1962), achieved a wide circulation.
Fred Hoyle was born at Bingley in Yorkshire, the son of a wool merchant, and by the age of 10 could navigate by the stars. From Bingley grammar school he went to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, to study maths: he was the Mayhew Prizeman in the 1936 Cambridge Mathematical Tripos.
He returned to Cambridge after the war as university lecturer in mathematics. In 1958 he was appointed the Plumian professor of astronomy and became the first director of the Cambridge Institute of Theoretical Astronomy in 1967. Unhappy with his life in Cambridge he tendered his resignation as Plumian professor from 1972 and as director of the institute from 1973.
Fred Hoyle was awarded numerous honorary doctorates, medals and prizes. His many books included Frontiers of Astronomy (1955), Men And Materialism (1956), Star Formation (1963), Galaxies, Nuclei and Quasars (1965), The Relation Of Physics And Cosmology (1973), Ten Faces Of The Universe (1977) and On Stonehenge (1977). His autobiography, Home Is Where The Wind Blows, was published in 1994.
He packed the lecture rooms wherever he spoke in the world, and "according to Hoyle" was a frequent catchphrase of the second half of the 20th century.
He is survived by his wife, Barbara Clark, whom he married in 1939, and by his son and daughter. Fred Hoyle: born 1915; died, August 2001