A Different Approach to Cosmology : From a Static Universe through the Big Bang towards Reality
Editorial Reviews
From Scientific American
For modern readers, raised on 1984 and Kurt Cobain, anything that smacks of the mainstream arouses suspicion. So after every cosmology article in Scientific American, editors brace for an onslaught of letters demanding that alternatives to conventional theories be given their due. This book describes the best-developed such alternative: the quasi-steady-state theory, the latest incarnation of the steady-state theory that Fred Hoyle first devised in 1948. It argues that the famous cosmic microwave background radiation is diffuse starlight rather than the afterglow of a hot big bang; that stars synthesized the chemical elements usually attributed to the bang; and that matter is continuously created and ejected from the cores of galaxies. The heterodoxy is seductive. But in a commentary in the April 1999 issue of Physics Today, cosmologist Andreas Albrecht outlined the failings of the theory and the tests it would need to pass before being taken seriously by most cosmologists. If nothing else, a critical reading of this book shows that "mainstream" isn't such a dirty word after all. Science is tricky. Seemingly plausible ideas can have subtle flaws, and it takes a collective effort of problem solving to find them out.
Review
'Professor Sir Fred Hoyle, Britain's greatest living astrophysicist ... launches his most comprehensive attack against the Big Bang theory, in a book with the archly subversive title A Different Approach to Cosmology. ... when Hoyle makes a cosmic pronouncement, it is invariably worth hearing ... Together with two other respected astrophysicists, Hoyle systematically reviews the evidence for the Big Bang theory, and gives it a good kicking ... it's hard not to be impressed by the audacity of the demolition job. The supposedly impressive evidence for galaxies being more crowded together in the past, they argue, emerged from woefully incomplete surveys of the night sky. Now the surveys are complete, the results tally nicely with the Steady State theory. As for the cooking of hydrogen into other elements, Hoyle and his colleagues show that ordinary stars are quite capable of doing this. And when they do, moreover, they fill the universe with a feeble amount of heat - just as observed. ... I can only hope that I possess one-thousandth of Hoyles' fighting spirit when I, like him, have reached my 85th year.' Robert Matthews, The Sunday Telegraph
'Throughout the last few decades, Fred Hoyle, Geoffrey Burbidge and Jayant Narlikar have done the cosmology community a great service by developing and defending a serious alternative to Big bang models of cosmic origins. A Different Approach to Cosmology is a summary of their work ... by elucidating one of the hot Big Bang's competitors, the authors provide a good educational exercise for any graduate student interested in fundamental cosmology.' David W. Hogg and Matias Zaldarriaga, Science
'... this book ... will help [younger cosmologists] to understand how Hoyle and others started to consider some bold and relevant cosmological ideas long before anyone else and to give credit where it is due.' Roger Blandford, The Times Higher Education Supplement
A Different Approach to Cosmology : From a Static Universe through the Big Bang towards Reality
A Different Approach to Cosmology: From a Static Universe through the Big Bang towards Reality,Fred Hoyle,Geoffrey Burbidge,Jayant V. Narlikar,Cambridge University Press,0521662230,Astronomy - Universe,Cosmology,Cosmology (Astronomy),Science,Science/Mathematics,Cosmology & the universe,Science / Astronomy
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