杏吧原创

FRED HOYLE was, without doubt, the most influential British physicist of the post-war era. There is barely a field of astrophysics or cosmology to which he did not contribute pivotal ideas. He created many of those fields 鈥� most notably cosmic nucleosynthesis, the study of the build-up of the elements in space, an area in which many believe he was cheated of the Nobel prize.

Even when he was wrong, he was right. His 鈥渟teady-state鈥� theory, in which matter was continuously created from the vacuum, is modern-day 鈥渋nflation鈥�, though acting for longer.

These and other topics are reviewed by a group of Hoyle鈥檚 long-time colleagues, friends and admirers who gathered in Cambridge in 2002 to celebrate and review his scientific life. With a foreword by Astronomer Royal Martin Rees, The Scientific Legacy of Fred Hoyle covers the remarkable range of interests of the man who coined the name 鈥渂ig bang鈥� 鈥� from cosmology to element synthesis, from interstellar matter to stellar evolution, from galaxy formation to the possible cosmic origin of life. The book鈥檚 editing lets it down in places, but it is a fitting tribute to an extraordinarily original mind.