Fred Hoyle - A Life in Science by Simon Mitton, Aurum Press. Hardback ISBN 1854109618, £18.99. (In the US, Conflict in the Cosmos: Fred Hoyle's Life in Science, Joseph Henry Press. Hardback ISBN 030909313, $27.95.)
Fred Hoyle (1915-2001) was something of a British counterpart to Richard Feynman. They both came from modest backgrounds, with fathers in the garment trade; both had supreme ability that propelled them to the top of the student ladder; and both had their research careers interrupted by the Second World War. Their work during the war - Feynman at Los Alamos, Hoyle in UK naval radar - also established important contacts for their future careers.
Both brandished fierce accents (Feynman's from New York City, Hoyle's from Yorkshire) as their personal trademarks. Both made important contributions in several areas of physics; both were gifted communicators and popularizers of science; and both could be irreverent of authority, a trait possibly inherited from their fathers.
While Feynman largely sidestepped administrative responsibilities to concentrate on research, Hoyle did not, and an otherwise distinguished career was sometimes marred by acrimony, his unconventional opinions often antagonizing contemporaries. (Frank could have been a more suitable name than Fred!)
With a wealth of documentation now available on Feynman, it is good to have something on Hoyle, and former Cambridge astronomer Simon Mitton is well qualified for the task. His lively offering overlaps with Hoyle's colourful 1994 autobiography Home is Where the Wind Blows, which was also a platform for flamboyant punditry, particularly Hoyle's disdain for conventional Big Bang cosmology. Mitton depicts a remarkable man who never stopped striving - if not doing science or writing, he was climbing mountains.
Hoyle began his research career at Cambridge as a theoretical physicist under Peierls, but after the latter's departure to Birmingham he switched to the nascent fields of astrophysics and cosmology. His major contributions went on to cover three areas - stellar accretion (with Lyttleton and Bondi), steady-state cosmology (with Bondi and Gold) and the classic work on nuclear evolution in stars (with the Burbidges and Fowler).
Steady-state cosmology has now fallen by the wayside, but paradoxically Hoyle will long be remembered for his continual staunch support of a dying cause. Mitton's book contains an extensive transcript of the 1949 radio broadcast in which Hoyle facetiously described the rival theory as a "Big Bang". Already at loggerheads with the astronomy community, Hoyle created more friction in these broadcasts. He was also a prolific producer of science fiction, an offbeat activity that annoyed some of his academic contemporaries.
Mitton's chapter "Clash of Titans" depicts the long battle at Cambridge between the hot-headed Hoyle and the tempestuous Martin Ryle. Entertaining though it may have been, this bitter personality clash poisoned the atmosphere at Cambridge and embarrassed the university. Nevertheless modern astronomy owes much to these men.
The outspoken Hoyle had run-ins with many sectors of the establishment. Mitton points out that these continual antics, including criticism of the 1974 Nobel award to Ryle and Antony Hewish for their pioneering contributions to radioastronomy, could have affected the Nobel decision in 1983: a prize with the theme of stellar evolution went to Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar and Hoyle's long-time collaborator William Fowler, the news of which "completely devastated Fowler as he realized Fred had been passed over".
Furious at other decisions, Hoyle threatened several times to resign from Cambridge, and finally departed in 1972 after being overlooked again for a new appointment. Mitton suggests that Hoyle, then 57, could have stepped back and remained in a cosy Cambridge niche. Characteristically he chose to walk out in a final thunderclap of frustration.
This valuable book paints a detailed picture of an important but enigmatic character who will long be studied. Hoyle's dramatic prediction of an overlooked energy level in carbon-12 - vital for the existence of life - will remain a saga of science (see CERN Courier July/August 2005 p15).
Mitton is at his best writing about subjects he knows well, such as astrophysics and the arcane politics of Cambridge University. The driving influence of Eddington is well described, but perhaps more could have been made of the pioneering role of Bethe in the development of nuclear theory - Bethe was awarded the 1967 Nobel prize for his work on nuclear reactions and their role in the stars. There are other criticisms too: Rutherford was hardly "at the height of his intellectual powers" when he died after, not before, surgery, and the names Cockcroft and Feynman are systematically misspelled. But none of this detracts from the value of the book.
Gordon Fraser, Divonne-les-Bains.