JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE INDICATES THAT QUESTIONS REMAIN: 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
🗓️ 4 December 2023
⏱️ 14 minutes
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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.
1945 GREENWICH OBSERVATORY
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Ola, imagine you're in Spain and you've just poured a refreshing Estriagalicia, |
| 0:05.6 | Cervesa. You hear the bubbles in the glass calling out. |
| 0:08.6 | In the Penly own and brooding Galicia since 1906, 100% authentic. But not all Spanish |
| 0:18.2 | beers are what they seem, a bit like me. I'm not Carlos from Acrouna. I'm Charles from visiting with Professor Paul Halpern. |
| 0:39.0 | Professor of Physics at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, his new book is |
| 0:43.1 | flashes of creation, George Kamoff, Fred Hoyle, and the Great Big Bang debate. |
| 0:48.0 | We are now after the Second War and our two protagonists, Fred Hoyle at Cambridge and George Gamoff at George Washington |
| 0:56.8 | University, are looking at the big topics of the moment, which is cosmology, but particle physics combined with cosmology. |
| 1:07.0 | And 46, 47, 48 are critical moments in the development of these competing or parallel theories. |
| 1:15.0 | There is a wonderful moment, however. |
| 1:17.0 | It is either 46 or 47. |
| 1:20.0 | Our hero, Mr. Hoyle, Professor Hoyle, and two of his colleagues at Cambridge, Bondi in Gold, |
| 1:26.7 | watch a movie called The Dead of Night. |
| 1:29.9 | It is a horror movie, a scary movie that ends with the beginning and begins with an ending. |
| 1:36.3 | It's looped. A dream that becomes a nightmare, that becomes a fact. |
| 1:41.6 | And at the end of this, have a breakthrough what is it Paul? |
| 1:46.0 | So after seeing this movie which is a which has a twist ending where the nightmare is repeated again and again. |
| 1:55.8 | They went back to Bondi's apartment in Cambridge, |
| 1:58.8 | had a few drinks, and over drinks Tommy Gold said, well, what if the universe is like that so they thought about and they said well maybe we can design a model of the universe that even though it expands new matter fills in the gaps so it pretty much looks the same forever |
| 2:16.7 | So as the galaxies move apart from each other then new matter |
| 2:23.4 | clusters eventually form stars and finally forms galaxies. So I like to think of the difference |
| 2:30.4 | between the Big Bang and the steady state as having to do with stadium seating. |
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