This is CBS I in the World. I'm John Bachelor with Professor Paul Halpern. His new book is Flashes of Creation, George Gamoff, Fred Hoyle, and the Great Big Bang debate. We've now found evidence of the Big Bang, or the big squeeze, or the creation moment. We also have better and

better understanding of how long ago it happened, 13.8. The temperature of the cosmos turns out to be,

I believe three degrees, Calvin. Is that correct, Paul? Three? Yeah, more precisely about 2.73

degrees Kelvin, but three was about what they came up with at that time.

And we follow Gamma first because he's older and his health becomes a challenge to him in the 1960s.

He will die in 1968.

He's a smoker and he has troubles with alcohol. However, before he passes away,

he recognizes that his work has contributed to these discoveries. Is that correct, Paul?

Oh, yes. He started writing to people. He wrote to Peebles. He wrote to Dickey, and his student Ralph Alfer also was writing

continuously to them to try to get the record straight because some of the calculations

that were done by the Dickie and Peoples group essentially reproduced some of the work

that Alfer under the tutelage of Gamov had done in the 1940s.

So they were trying to bring attention to their earlier papers.

And at one point, Gamov went to a conference in New York, and at the conference, he made a statement,

if you lose a penny and then you later find a penny, it's still the same penny.

The same with my theories.

Yes, it's a wonderful metaphor.

I liked him for it.

Now, Fred Hoyle, Fred Hoyle works with husband and wife, Margaret and Jeffrey Burbridge and Wilson Fowler.

You've mentioned him earlier. William Fowler, you've mentioned him earlier.

You said that Hull's work pursues into the bodies of stars.

They come up with an explanation for elements heavier than iron.

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