IS DARK ENERGY WEAKENING? 3/4: Flashes of Creation: George Gamow, Fred Hoyle, and the Great Big Bang Debate, by Paul Halpern
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 22 April 2024
⏱️ 14 minutes
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Summary
https://www.science.org/content/article/model-ever-expanding-universe-confirmed-dark-energy-probe
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/technology/something-fishy-is-happening-with-the-milky-ways-dark-matter-halo/ar-BB1hs74y
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08PV5CLZQ/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i0
A respected physics professor and author breaks down the great debate over the Big Bang and the continuing quest to understand the fate of the universe. Today, the Big Bang is so entrenched in our understanding of the cosmos that to doubt it would seem crazy. But as Paul Halpern shows in Flashes of Creation, just decades ago its mere mention caused sparks to fly. At the center of the debate were the Russian-American physicist George Gamow and the British astrophysicist Fred Hoyle. Gamow insisted that a fiery explosion explained how the elements of the universe were created. Attacking the idea as half-baked, Hoyle countered that the universe was engaged in a never-ending process of creation. The battle was fierce. In the end, Gamow turned out to be right—mostly—and Hoyle, along with his many achievements, is remembered for giving the theory the silliest possible name: "the Big Bang." Halpern captures the brilliance of both thinkers and reminds us that even those proven wrong have much to teach us about boldness, imagination, and the universe, itself.
1910 Halley's Comet
Transcript
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| 0:04.0 | Jane Gaskin did exactly that, trading in the family home to begin a new life in the |
| 0:09.1 | tropics. |
| 0:10.1 | But she soon discovers that Paradise has its secrets. |
| 0:13.4 | I'm Alice Levine, and this is the price of Paradise, |
| 0:18.0 | the island dream that ends in kidnap, corruption, and murder. |
| 0:23.0 | Wish you were here. |
| 0:24.0 | Follow the price of Paradise Now, wherever you listen to podcasts. |
| 0:28.0 | This is CBS I and the World. |
| 0:32.0 | I'm John Bachelor visiting with Professor Paul Halpern, |
| 0:35.0 | Professor of Physics at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia. |
| 0:38.0 | His new book is Flashes of Creation. |
| 0:41.0 | George Gamoff, Fred Hoyle, and the Great Big Bang debate. |
| 0:44.4 | We are now after the Second War, and our two protagonists, Fred Hoyle at Cambridge and |
| 0:50.4 | George Kamoff at George Washington in University are looking at the big topics of the moment |
| 0:57.3 | which is cosmology but particle physics combined with cosmology and 46, 47, 48 are critical moments in the |
| 1:06.8 | development of these competing or parallel theories. There is a wonderful moment, however. It is either 46 or 47. Our hero, |
| 1:17.0 | Mr. Hoyle, Professor Hoyle, and two of his colleagues at Cambridge, Bondi and Gold, watch a movie called The Dead of Night. |
| 1:26.5 | It is a horror movie, a scary movie that ends with the beginning and begins with an ending. It's looped. A dream that becomes a nightmare that becomes a |
| 1:36.7 | fact and at the end of this they have a breakthrough. What is it Paul? So after seeing this movie, which is a, which has a twist ending where the nightmare is repeated again and again, they went back to Bondi's apartment in Cambridge, |
| 1:55.0 | had a few drinks, and over drinks Tommy Gold said, |
| 2:00.0 | well, what if the universe is like that? |
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