The Stars in the Sky
Vignette: The Stars in the Sky
New York Times review of “The Stars in the Skies” by Fred Hoyle, September 16, 1990 issue.
Fred Hoyle may be known to American audiences as the 1980 Nobel Prize winner with William Fowler, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, and Geoffrey and Margaret Bubridge, or for his series for the BBC, such as 1966’s The Black Cloud or 1978’s The Tenth Planet, (the latter co-written with Arthur C. Clarke), often broadcast on the Federal Broadcasting Corporation as of late thanks to the recent détente between the two sides of the Pond. While perhaps not as popular as his contemporaries like Stephen Hawking or Freeman Dyson, Hoyle’s contributions to physics should not be forgotten, though his stubbornness regarding certain topics, including rejecting the “Cosmic Egg” theory, and his controversial opinions on certain topics have earned him the ire of many of his colleagues. This sort of rebellious spirit, now on full display with the Openness era of [Michael] Moorcock and [Gerry] Gable, is embodied in his new memoir, “The Stars in the Sky”, exploring his misadventures within Red Britain and how it exposes the weirdness and paradoxes that lay in its heart.
Hoyle was only ten when the revolution happened. He couldn’t recall much of it being around his hometown of Gilstead. However, he remembered how his school was restructured in its aftermath, now with an increased focus on Marxist history and new experimental ways of teaching. He would go on to Cambridge, studying Mathematics, before leaving briefly to join the war effort in 1937, working on the radar staff, with sojourns into the center of the war in Spain. When the US entered the war, Hoyle took the opportunity to visit observatories across the country, and in particular, Caltech and its then ongoing supernovae research. As he describes it, he quickly connected it with the Tube Alloys program (which would lead to the Soviet-British atomic bombs dropped in Dresden and Nuremberg), and its focus on nuclear physics, giving birth to the idea of stellar nucleosynthesis. He assembled a group of colleagues in the field, and together they would assemble a paper concluding that many elements are born from the processes of stellar fusion, and spread through supernovae. It was this paper that would eventually earn him and the other scientist the most prestigious award in physics.
In spite of this achievement, Hoyle was controversial amongst British scientists for his views. The primary impetus of this was his outspoken opposition to Lemaire’s “Cosmic Egg” theory, positing instead a static universe. This advocacy would alienate him from many colleagues as evidence mounted for Lemaire’s theory. He even tried to reconcile General Relativity with his ideal, much to the derision of scientists across the world. His other ideas weren’t met with any more acceptance, including his collaborations with Soviet astronomer Iosif Shklovsky on speculating that Mars’ moon of Phobos being a hollow alien craft or his current work with the ideas of “panspermia”. Much of the book is dedicated to explaining and justifying his views, though with no more convincing evidence.
The real meat of the book comes from his ambivalent experience with the communist British government and its Soviet backers. He recalls, with bitterness, JD Bernal purging many geneticists from the People’s Academy of Science, including famed biologists JBS Haldane and John Maynard Smith (forcing some of them into exile to places like Canada, the US, and even other Communist countries like Germany and India) during in the immediate post-war period due to their outspoken opposition to Lysenkoism, and the tightening of Soviet-British relations leading to a more widespread adoption of that ideology. Hoyle admits reliefs that his chosen fields were never targeted, though notes that colleagues from all fields were regularly arrested for various indiscretions.
Hoyle also describes the byzantine intricacies of the Socialist British bureaucracy, especially as he branches out into TV writing. The various parts of The Black Cloud were subject to a variety of rules and regulations by the BBC, which tightened production costs and forced them to change parts of the script, (including, incidentally, references to Mendelian genetics). Because of the rise of détente in the period, and the prestige afforded to him by Black Cloud, he and co-writer Clarke faced less opposition in making Tenth Planet. However, they were forced to make the story more about an international expedition, than the original script describing a competition between the Comintern and the American bloc as they planned expeditions. The other projects would find themselves lost within the larger bureaucratic system, and Hoyle shares several excerpts. Hoyle contends that other science fiction and indeed most TV series in Britain (and some in the USSR and other parts of Europe) had to deal with these sorts of issue.
Hoyle reserves his largest scorn for the many sorts of authority figures that pervade every part of that bureaucracy. He describes how he and his Nobel co-Laureates were accompanied by body guards, because there was fear that they would defect in American-backed Sweden. Hoyle speculates this was due to his support for CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) advocates like Hawking or Malcolm Caldwell and their release. He was also accompanied on trips to the US or Brazil, or even once to India, where he briefly met with Haldane (now in exile). He also spends time heavily attacking JD Bernal for the previously explained actions.
In the final chapter, Hoyle expresses hope for the future, stating that the rise of nuclear disarmament agreements, which has allowed the “Doomsday Clock” to be set back to over ten minutes to midnight, and the growing scientific cooperation between the Comintern bloc and American bloc (as shown in a recent conferend, as well as the reforms made under Moorcock, gave him some hope for the future. Hoyle however cautions that these are not full victories in and of themselves, but steps towards larger goals of world peace and technological development.
“The Stars in the Skies” is highly recommended for its portrayal of an eccentric, interesting figure at its center and a look into the scientific world in the Eastern bloc.
New York Times review of “The Stars in the Skies” by Fred Hoyle, September 16, 1990 issue.
Fred Hoyle may be known to American audiences as the 1980 Nobel Prize winner with William Fowler, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, and Geoffrey and Margaret Bubridge, or for his series for the BBC, such as 1966’s The Black Cloud or 1978’s The Tenth Planet, (the latter co-written with Arthur C. Clarke), often broadcast on the Federal Broadcasting Corporation as of late thanks to the recent détente between the two sides of the Pond. While perhaps not as popular as his contemporaries like Stephen Hawking or Freeman Dyson, Hoyle’s contributions to physics should not be forgotten, though his stubbornness regarding certain topics, including rejecting the “Cosmic Egg” theory, and his controversial opinions on certain topics have earned him the ire of many of his colleagues. This sort of rebellious spirit, now on full display with the Openness era of [Michael] Moorcock and [Gerry] Gable, is embodied in his new memoir, “The Stars in the Sky”, exploring his misadventures within Red Britain and how it exposes the weirdness and paradoxes that lay in its heart.
Hoyle was only ten when the revolution happened. He couldn’t recall much of it being around his hometown of Gilstead. However, he remembered how his school was restructured in its aftermath, now with an increased focus on Marxist history and new experimental ways of teaching. He would go on to Cambridge, studying Mathematics, before leaving briefly to join the war effort in 1937, working on the radar staff, with sojourns into the center of the war in Spain. When the US entered the war, Hoyle took the opportunity to visit observatories across the country, and in particular, Caltech and its then ongoing supernovae research. As he describes it, he quickly connected it with the Tube Alloys program (which would lead to the Soviet-British atomic bombs dropped in Dresden and Nuremberg), and its focus on nuclear physics, giving birth to the idea of stellar nucleosynthesis. He assembled a group of colleagues in the field, and together they would assemble a paper concluding that many elements are born from the processes of stellar fusion, and spread through supernovae. It was this paper that would eventually earn him and the other scientist the most prestigious award in physics.
In spite of this achievement, Hoyle was controversial amongst British scientists for his views. The primary impetus of this was his outspoken opposition to Lemaire’s “Cosmic Egg” theory, positing instead a static universe. This advocacy would alienate him from many colleagues as evidence mounted for Lemaire’s theory. He even tried to reconcile General Relativity with his ideal, much to the derision of scientists across the world. His other ideas weren’t met with any more acceptance, including his collaborations with Soviet astronomer Iosif Shklovsky on speculating that Mars’ moon of Phobos being a hollow alien craft or his current work with the ideas of “panspermia”. Much of the book is dedicated to explaining and justifying his views, though with no more convincing evidence.
The real meat of the book comes from his ambivalent experience with the communist British government and its Soviet backers. He recalls, with bitterness, JD Bernal purging many geneticists from the People’s Academy of Science, including famed biologists JBS Haldane and John Maynard Smith (forcing some of them into exile to places like Canada, the US, and even other Communist countries like Germany and India) during in the immediate post-war period due to their outspoken opposition to Lysenkoism, and the tightening of Soviet-British relations leading to a more widespread adoption of that ideology. Hoyle admits reliefs that his chosen fields were never targeted, though notes that colleagues from all fields were regularly arrested for various indiscretions.
Hoyle also describes the byzantine intricacies of the Socialist British bureaucracy, especially as he branches out into TV writing. The various parts of The Black Cloud were subject to a variety of rules and regulations by the BBC, which tightened production costs and forced them to change parts of the script, (including, incidentally, references to Mendelian genetics). Because of the rise of détente in the period, and the prestige afforded to him by Black Cloud, he and co-writer Clarke faced less opposition in making Tenth Planet. However, they were forced to make the story more about an international expedition, than the original script describing a competition between the Comintern and the American bloc as they planned expeditions. The other projects would find themselves lost within the larger bureaucratic system, and Hoyle shares several excerpts. Hoyle contends that other science fiction and indeed most TV series in Britain (and some in the USSR and other parts of Europe) had to deal with these sorts of issue.
Hoyle reserves his largest scorn for the many sorts of authority figures that pervade every part of that bureaucracy. He describes how he and his Nobel co-Laureates were accompanied by body guards, because there was fear that they would defect in American-backed Sweden. Hoyle speculates this was due to his support for CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) advocates like Hawking or Malcolm Caldwell and their release. He was also accompanied on trips to the US or Brazil, or even once to India, where he briefly met with Haldane (now in exile). He also spends time heavily attacking JD Bernal for the previously explained actions.
In the final chapter, Hoyle expresses hope for the future, stating that the rise of nuclear disarmament agreements, which has allowed the “Doomsday Clock” to be set back to over ten minutes to midnight, and the growing scientific cooperation between the Comintern bloc and American bloc (as shown in a recent conferend, as well as the reforms made under Moorcock, gave him some hope for the future. Hoyle however cautions that these are not full victories in and of themselves, but steps towards larger goals of world peace and technological development.
“The Stars in the Skies” is highly recommended for its portrayal of an eccentric, interesting figure at its center and a look into the scientific world in the Eastern bloc.