Hoyle Quotes

Space isn't remote at all. It's only an hour's drive away if your car could go straight upwards.

There is a coherent plan to the universe, though I don't know what it's a plan for.

Scientists are slowly waking up to an inconvenient truth - the universe looks suspiciously like a fix. The issue concerns the very laws of nature themselves. For 40 years, physicists and cosmologists have been quietly collecting examples of all too convenient "coincidences" and special features in the underlying laws of the universe that seem to be necessary in order for life, and hence conscious beings, to exist. Change any one of them and the consequences would be lethal. Fred Hoyle, the distinguished cosmologist, once said it was as if "a super-intellect has monkeyed with physics". To see the problem, imagine playing God with the cosmos. Before you is a designer machine that lets you tinker with the basics of physics. Twiddle this knob and you make all electrons a bit lighter, twiddle that one and you make gravity a bit stronger, and so on. It happens that you need to set thirtysomething knobs to fully describe the world about us. The crucial point is that some of those metaphorical knobs must be tuned very precisely, or the universe would be sterile. Example: neutrons are just a tad heavier than protons. If it were the other way around, atoms couldn't exist, because all the protons in the universe would have decayed into neutrons shortly after the big bang. No protons, then no atomic nucleuses and no atoms. No atoms, no chemistry, no life. Like Baby Bear's porridge in the story of Goldilocks, the universe seems to be just right for life.

When I was young, the old regarded me as an outrageous young fellow, and now that I'm old the young regard me as an outrageous old fellow.

The Quitter When you're lost in the Wild, and you're scared as a child, And Death looks you bang in the eye, And you're sore as a boil, it's according to Hoyle To cock your revolver and . . . die. But the Code of a Man says: "Fight all you can," And self-dissolution is barred. In hunger and woe, oh, it's easy to blow... It's the hell-served-for-breakfast that's hard. "You're sick of the game!" Well, now, that's a shame. You're young and you're brave and you're bright. "You've had a raw deal!" I know — but don't squeal, Buck up, do your damnedest, and fight. It's the plugging away that will win you the day, So don't be a piker, old pard! Just draw on your grit; it's so easy to quit: It's the keeping-your-chin-up that's hard. It's easy to cry that you're beaten — and die; It's easy to crawfish and crawl; But to fight and to fight when hope's out of sight — Why, that's the best game of them all! And though you come out of each gruelling bout, All broken and beaten and scarred, Just have one more try — it's dead easy to die, It's the keeping-on-living that's hard.

Life cannot have had a random beginning ... The trouble is that there are about 2000 enzymes, and the chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in 10^40,000, an outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup.

A junkyard contains all the bits and pieces of a Boeing 747, dismembered and in disarray. A whirlwind happens to blow through the yard. What is the chance that after its passage a fully assembled 747, ready to fly, will be found standing there? So small as to be negligible, even if a tornado were to blow through enough junkyards to fill the whole Universe.

British astronomer Fred Hoyle said something to this effect: That believing in Darwin's theoretical mechanisms of evolution was like believing that a hurricane could blow through a junkyard and build a Boeing 747

There is always hope,” she said. “Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there.

If Hitch were a person, he'd be Mother Theresa or Gandhi or someone who treated all living creatures with the respect they deserve. It's depressing how my dog is a better human being than I am.

It isn't the Universe that's following our logic, it's we that are constructed in accordance with the logic of the Universe. And that gives what I might call a definition of intelligent life: something that reflects the basic structure of the Universe.

Viewed from a wholly logical point of view the bearing and rearing of children is a thoroughly unattractive proposition. To a woman it means pain and endless worry. To a man it means extra work extending over many years to support his family. So, if we were wholly logical about sex, we should probably not bother to reproduce at all. Nature takes care of this by making us utterly and wholly irrational.

It's sad that my dog looks confused when my phone rings, like he's baffled by my blossoming social life.

As soon as I learned from my mother that there was a place called school that I must attend willy nilly --- a place where you were obliged to think about matters prescribed by a 'teacher,' not about matters decided by yourself---I was appalled.

Most boys her age spent half their free time playing video games, but Tellius spent all of his in adult pursuits like fighting, managing, ruling, and delegating, and it showed. If she’d begun to think he was attractive last year, she now wondered how she ever could have found him anything but attractive. As she took in his square jaw, straight aristocratic nose, intense green-flecked eyes, and that ever-present smattering of freckles, Darcy felt her ears grow warm. She looked down at the flagstones. Darcey Pennington

I make a mental note to look into a psychology degree. Seriously. I may not be a real people person, but for one hundred and fifty dollars an hour, I think I can sit behind a desk and say, 'Tell me about that. Tell me about how that makes you feel.

Some people see the liquid and think half full. Others only see the air and think half empty. Sometimes I get the sense Chatham sees it all, which is kind of terrifying. I don't know if I want him to see me--the real me.

Things are the way they are because they were the way they were.

New ideas, fragile as spring flowers, easily bruised by the tread of the multitude, may yet be cherished by the solitary wanderer.

Once we see, however, that the probability of life originating at random is so utterly miniscule as to make it absurd, it becomes sensible to think that the favorable properties of physics on which life depends are in every respect deliberate ... . It is therefore almost inevitable that our own measure of intelligence must reflect ... higher intelligences ... even to the limit of God ... such a theory is so obvious that one wonders why it is not widely accepted as being self-evident. The reasons are psychological rather than scientific.

I am an atheist, but as far as blowing up the world in a nuclear war goes, I tell them not to worry.

True love is born of time and trials, and it is rarely caught up in feelings.

Pe măsură ce urcăm scara cerurilor, priveliştile sînt mai neaşteptate. Printre constelaţii şiroiuri de galaxii, stele novae, pitice şi albe, uitînd de predici mînioase, volume de teologie şi argumente apologetice, depăşind izvoare veşnice de hidrogen – reglate de spiritul profesorului Hoyle -, lăsînd în urmă judecători, constructori, socotitori, profeţi, gravi filosofi şi geometri neeuclidieni. Sufletul urcă mereu mai sus, curăţîndu-se, pînă la staţia terminus: locul de lumină şi verdeţă, pajiştea înflorată, mişunînd de căţei mici şi dolofani şi de pisicuţe albe cu fundă, acolo unde răsună acordurile divertsmentelor lui Mozart şi se ostenesc îngerii cu aripi ai lui Liliom să ofere necontenit dulceaţuri şi şerbet, acolo unde se află Dumnezeu cel adevărat, al pruncilor lăsaţi – în sfîrşit – să vină, oricît de bătrîni de ani sau de împovăraţi de grele amintiri, să vadă: pe Tatăl cu barba albă, la mijloc, pe Hristos purtător de stigmate şi cruce în dreapta, pe Duhul curăţitor şi alinător în stînga.

ان الحياة لم تنشأ على الأرض، ولكنها جاءت مع سحب من الغبار الكوني من أعماق الكون، فالنشاط الحيوي في الكون لا بد أنه نشأ قبل نشأة الأرض

Once a photograph of the Earth, taken from the outside, is available... a new idea as powerful as any in history will be let loose.

the groundbreakers in many sciences were devout believers. Witness the accomplishments of Nicolaus Copernicus (a priest) in astronomy, Blaise Pascal (a lay apologist) in mathematics, Gregor Mendel (a monk) in genetics, Louis Pasteur in biology, Antoine Lavoisier in chemistry, John von Neumann in computer science, and Enrico Fermi and Erwin Schrodinger in physics. That’s a short list, and it includes only Roman Catholics; a long list could continue for pages. A roster that included other believers—Protestants, Jews, and unconventional theists like Albert Einstein, Fred Hoyle, and Paul Davies—could fill a book.

If you don’t use your new knowledge and skills within a relatively short space of time, then it may have been better never to have had the tantalising prospect of change for the better placed in front of you.

as nucleosynthesis. In 1957, working with others, Hoyle showed how the heavier elements were formed in supernova explosions. For this work, W. A. Fowler, one of his collaborators, received a Nobel Prize. Hoyle, shamefully, did not.

The Quitter When you're lost in the Wild, and you're scared as a child, And Death looks you bang in the eye, And you're sore as a boil, it's according to Hoyle To cock your revolver and . . . die. But the Code of a Man says: "Fight all you can," And self-dissolution is barred. In hunger and woe, oh, it's easy to blow . . . It's the hell-served-for-breakfast that's hard. "You're sick of the game!" Well, now, that's a shame. You're young and you're brave and you're bright. "You've had a raw deal!" I know -- but don't squeal, Buck up, do your damnedest, and fight. It's the plugging away that will win you the day, So don't be a piker, old pard! Just draw on your grit; it's so easy to quit: It's the keeping-your-chin-up that's hard. It's easy to cry that you're beaten -- and die; It's easy to crawfish and crawl; But to fight and to fight when hope's out of sight -- Why, that's the best game of them all! And though you come out of each gruelling bout, All broken and beaten and scarred, Just have one more try -- it's dead easy to die, It's the keeping-on-living that's hard.

Fred Hoyle, były agnostyk, który później został zauroczony „aktem stworzenia”, był astronomem uniwersytetu w Cambridge, który ukuł termin „Big Bang” (Wielki Wybuch). (Ten dość głupawy zwrot przyszedł mu na myśl zupełnie przypadkowo, kiedy usiłował zdyskredytować to, co wiedział na temat zaaprobowanej już teorii pochodzenia wszechświata.

I laugh because I dare not cry. This is a crazy world and the only way to enjoy it is to treat it as a joke. That doesn’t mean I don’t read and can’t think. I read everything from Giblett to Hoyle, from Sartre to Pauling. I read in the tub, I read on the john, I read in bed, I read when I eat alone, and I would read in my sleep if I could keep my eyes open.

The most important skill for a new recruit from university will be the ability to learn.

The cost of a range of appropriate courses and training activities is much less than the cost of incompetence.

There is a distressing tendency of the L&D profession to latch on to half read and barely understood concepts.

Damn queer," he announced. "But lots of things damn queer. Damn queer that Moon looks just same size as Sun. Damn queer that I'm here, isn't it so?

Damn queer," he announced. "But lots of things damn queer. Damn queer that Moon looks just same size as Sum. Damn queer that I'm here, isn't it so?

The notion that not only the biopolymer but the operating program of a living cell could be arrived at by chance in a primordial organic soup here on the Earth is evidently nonsense of a high order.

Doubt yourself and you doubt everything you see. Judge yourself and you see judges everywhere. But if you listen to the sound of your own voice, you can rise above doubt and judgment. And you can see forever.

We know that the difference between a heliocentric theory and a geocentric theory is one of relative motion only, and that such a difference has no physical significance. [Astronomy and Cosmology - A Modern Course. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman & Co]

Proteins, in short, are complex entities. Hemoglobin is only 146 amino acids long, a runt by protein standards, yet even it offers 10190 possible amino acid combinations, which is why it took the Cambridge University chemist Max Perutz twenty-three years—a career, more or less—to unravel it. For random events to produce even a single protein would seem a stunning improbability—like a whirlwind spinning through a junkyard and leaving behind a fully assembled jumbo jet, in the colorful simile of the astronomer Fred Hoyle.

A thoughtful observer of the scientific betting shop, the biologist Sir Peter Medawar, has said: ‘I cannot give any scientist of any age better advice than this: the intensity of the conviction that a hypothesis is true has no bearing on whether it is true or not.’ But as Medawar goes on to note, conviction is an incentive to work. Science is one of the most passionate of human activities: how else would researchers be sustained through the long weeks or years of drudgery, why otherwise should Hoyle and Wickramasinghe spend so much time in correspondence with school matrons? If appearances contradict this, it is because all gamblers pride themselves on keeping their outward cool.

Space isn’t remote at all. It’s only an hour’s drive away if your car could go straight upwards. —Astronomer Fred Hoyle

done. Why did he stick around? Why would he force that encounter with you on the road, and that night at the diner . . .” He looked at Chris as though willing him to fill in the blanks, but Chris’s implacable eyes gave away nothing. “Wait,” Beck said, “I just remembered something. When Watkins came into the diner, I remember him looking surprised to see us there. But it was only me he was surprised to see, wasn’t it? He said he was there for a business . . . Ah,” he said with sudden enlightenment. “The payoff. He was meeting you there to get his money. “That was the night of Billy’s accident. I’d just come from the hospital. Our unscheduled meeting in the diner prevented you from conducting your transaction with Watkins. No wonder he was so angry that night on the road. He still hadn’t been paid. He was getting antsy. The heat was shifting from you onto him. In desperation, he went to Sayre and got Scott focused on the fratricide angle. That brought things to a head, so you arranged for a meeting with Watkins at the camp this morning.” Chris grinned. “I bet you aced law school, didn’t you? You’re actually very sharp. But, Beck, the only thing I would swear to under oath is that Slap Watkins came crashing through the door of the cabin, waving a knife and telling me he was going to kill his second Hoyle and how giddy he was at the prospect.” “I have no doubt that’s what happened, Chris. He just arrived earlier than you expected. He wanted to get the jump on you because he didn’t trust you. Justifiably. Even Watkins was smart enough to realize that you weren’t about to hand over money and let him walk away from that last meeting. He signed his own death warrant the minute he agreed to kill Danny.” “Please, Beck. Let’s not get sentimental over Slap. A double cross was his plan from the very beginning. Why do you think he left that matchbook in the cabin?” Beck mentally stepped back from himself and considered his options. He could leave now. Simply turn around and walk out. Go to Sayre. Live out the rest of his days loving her, and to hell with Chris and Huff, their treachery and corruption, to hell with their stinking, maiming, life-taking foundry. He was so damn weary of the struggle and the pretense. He longed to throw off this mantle of responsibility, to forget he ever knew the Hoyles and let the devil take them—if he would have them. That was what he wanted to do. Or he could stay and do what he had committed to do. As appealing as the former option was, the latter was preordained. “Slap Watkins didn’t plant the matchbook in the cabin, Chris.” He held Chris’s stare for several seconds, before adding, “I did.” • • • George

To consider factual the musings of Darwin and his mechanisms of evolution is to believe that a hurricane blowing through a junkyard can assemble a Boeing 747." - T. Hoyle, British Astronomer

I like here to think of another Fred, the eminent British scientist Fred Hoyle, and his theory of the universe, in which matter is continuously being created, with the universe expanding but not dissipating. As island galaxies rush away from each other into eternity, new clouds of gas are condensing into new galaxies. As old stars die, new stars are being born. Mr. Melcher lived in this universe of continuous creation and expansion.

Küçücük bir dünyada büyük insanlar olarak kalmak mı istiyoruz, yoksa uçsuz bucaksız bir dünyada küçük insanlar olmak mı?

Bu konuda bariz şekilde kötü görünmeyeceklerine katılıyorum tabii. Yaptıkları her şey için iyi sebepleri olacak. Sadece çok küçük bir insan grubunun kurtarılabileceği açığa çıktığında bu şanslı insanların topluma en yararlı olanlar olması gerektiği tartışılacak ve bu tartışma kaynatılıp damıtıldığında topluma en faydalı olanların meğer siyasi kardeşlik üyeleri, mareşaller, krallar, başpiskoposlar vs. olduğu ortaya çıkacak. Bunlardan daha önemli kim var ki zaten?

When you’re lost in the Wild and you’re scared as a child, And Death looks you bang in the eye, And you’re sore as a boil it’s according to Hoyle To cock your revolver…and die. But the Code of a Man says: “Fight all you can,” And self-dissolution is barred. In hunger and woe, oh, it’s easy to blow… It’s the hell-served-for-breakfast that’s hard.

Belief is a poor substitute for certain knowledge.

More radically, how can we be sure that the source of consciousness lies within our bodies at all? You might think that because a blow to the head renders one unconscious, the ‘seat of consciousness’ must lie within the skull. But there is no logical reason to conclude that. An enraged blow to my TV set during an unsettling news programme may render the screen blank, but that doesn’t mean the news reader is situated inside the television. A television is just a receiver: the real action is miles away in a studio. Could the brain be merely a receiver of ‘consciousness signals’ created somewhere else? In Antarctica, perhaps? (This isn’t a serious suggestion – I’m just trying to make a point.) In fact, the notion that somebody or something ‘out there’ may ‘put thoughts in our heads’ is a pervasive one; Descartes himself raised this possibility by envisaging a mischievous demon messing with our minds. Today, many people believe in telepathy. So the basic idea that minds are delocalized is actually not so far-fetched. In fact, some distinguished scientists have flirted with the idea that not all that pops up in our minds originates in our heads. A popular, if rather mystical, idea is that flashes of mathematical inspiration can occur by the mathematician’s mind somehow ‘breaking through’ into a Platonic realm of mathematical forms and relationships that not only lies beyond the brain but beyond space and time altogether. The cosmologist Fred Hoyle once entertained an even bolder hypothesis: that quantum effects in the brain leave open the possibility of external input into our thought processes and thus guide us towards useful scientific concepts. He proposed that this ‘external guide’ might be a superintelligence in the far cosmic future using a subtle but well-known backwards-in-time property of quantum mechanics in order to steer scientific progress.

More radically, how can we be sure that the source of consciousness lies within our bodies at all? You might think that because a blow to the head renders one unconscious, the ‘seat of consciousness’ must lie within the skull. But there is no logical reason to conclude that. An enraged blow to my TV set during an unsettling news programme may render the screen blank, but that doesn’t mean the news reader is situated inside the television. A television is just a receiver: the real action is miles away in a studio. Could the brain be merely a receiver of ‘consciousness signals’ created somewhere else? In Antarctica, perhaps? (This isn’t a serious suggestion – I’m just trying to make a point.) In fact, the notion that somebody or something ‘out there’ may ‘put thoughts in our heads’ is a pervasive one; Descartes himself raised this possibility by envisaging a mischievous demon messing with our minds. Today, many people believe in telepathy. So the basic idea that minds are delocalized is actually not so far-fetched. In fact, some distinguished scientists have flirted with the idea that not all that pops up in our minds originates in our heads. A popular, if rather mystical, idea is that flashes of mathematical inspiration can occur by the mathematician’s mind somehow ‘breaking through’ into a Platonic realm of mathematical forms and relationships that not only lies beyond the brain but beyond space and time altogether. The cosmologist Fred Hoyle once entertained an even bolder hypothesis: that quantum effects in the brain leave open the possibility of external input into our thought processes and thus guide us towards useful scientific concepts. He proposed that this ‘external guide’ might be a superintelligence in the far cosmic future using a subtle but well-known backwards-in-time property of quantum mechanics in order to steer scientific progress.

Maybe true love is trusting someone or something so much that you feel safe enough to be yourself with them.

Let’s focus on what we can control and worry about the other stuff later.

I inhale, basking in the moment. The world is full of opportunity, like the open sea. My heart is light—lighter than it’s been in ages—floating on a wave of possibility.

I strain at my too-tight shell, my hermit crab body preparing to molt, ready to shed this skin in favor of a larger shell that will accommodate my new growth. It's time to head out into the aquarium unprotected in search of a better fit, time to quit burrowing down into the same old sand and hiding from the world.

But what Mom and I are doing isn't even doggy paddling. Were treading water in a hurricane, choking on choppy water. Mom's made a few tentative kicks and strokes, but I've been pulling her down. She can't swim because I've tied myself around her ankles like a cement block.

When the water gets deep and the current strong, you have to swim. Promise me, you’ll swim.

I see only two concerns: One, I’ll stand out like a prep at a punk concert with an eighty-five pound golden retriever at my side. Two, Hitch will lick somebody to death.

With the exception of the near drowning this morning, today has been amazing.

Society today is based in its technology on thinking in terms of numbers. In its social organization, on the other hand, it is based on thinking in terms of words. It's in here that the real clash lies, between the literary mind and the mathematical mind.

Over the years, as Hoyle thought more about the discovery of the exact resonance level of carbon that he had predicted, and especially about all the factors that had to be just right to make carbon relatively easy to produce inside stars, he became convinced that some intelligence had orchestrated the precise balance of forces and factors in nature to make the universe life-permitting.

O LAKE OF LIGHT” Risen from the milky sward I saw the one I love with flower And on her breast an unborn moon O wondrous moon! O lake of light! The grass so green is turning white O moon, O wondrous lake of light! Milk of fire upon her tongue Drew birds of jade and betel gum Run river run! The world of late grown small Now achieves its just dimension The one I love grown big with flower Wheels within the lunar hour Birds of jade in milky fire Mitigate the heart’s desire Then run, river, run, as runs the sun For none are born except the one That lies upon the breast undone The moon unborn is chill as night The heart is like a lake of light Flower, moon, milk of fire These together do conspire Take wing, strange birds, take wing! —Henry Miller

begin all over again. Cancer then is the apogee of death in life, as Capricorn is of life in death. The two symbols are found in geography as tropics (which is another word for hieroglyphics), Cancer lying above the equator and Capricorn below. Myself am trying to walk the hair line which separates the two. The line is only imaginary—there is no boundary line to reality.

In the street you learn what human beings really are; otherwise, or afterwards, you invent them. What is not in the open street is false, derived, that is to say, literature.

Fred Hoyle,

There’s a fine line between child-like – learning as a child does, the natural way we learn most stuff – and being child-ish.

Walking the walk is one thing, but it is so much more powerful if you can talk it as well.

Human beings are simply pawns in the games of alien minds that control our every move.” - Dr. Fred Hoyle, renowned astrophysicist

For random events to produce even a single protein would seem a stunning improbability—like a whirlwind spinning through a junkyard and leaving behind a fully assembled jumbo jet, in the colorful simile of the astronomer Fred Hoyle.

El Salmo 19:1 dice: “Los cielos cuentan la gloria de Dios, el firmamento proclama la obra de sus manos”39. A decir verdad, está escrito a través de los cielos tan vívidamente que cada vez más científicos que buscan las estrellas, se están volviendo cristianos. »El gran cosmólogo Allan Sandage, quien ganó la versión de astronomía del Premio Nobel, concluyó que Dios es “la explicación para los milagros de la existencia”40. Sir Fred Hoyle, inventor de la teoría cosmológica del estado estacionario del universo para evitar la existencia de Dios, finalmente se volvió un creyente en un Diseñador Inteligente del universo. »El astrofísico Hugh Ross, quien obtuvo su doctorado en astronomía en la Universidad de Toronto e hizo estudios en quásars y galaxias, dijo que la evidencia científica e histórica “enraizó profundamente mi confianza en la veracidad de la Biblia”41. Robert Jastrow, un reconocido agnóstico, director del observatorio del monte Wilson y fundador del Instituto del Espacio Goddard, concluyó que el Big Bang apunta hacia Dios. Y me gusta lo que el físico y matemático Robert Griffiths dijo: “Si necesitamos un ateo para un debate, voy al departamento de filosofía. El departamento de física no es de mucha utilidad” 42. Lee, la evidencia, es muy clara.

Bütün Big Bangın bu açıq Zəfəri dəlillər nəzəriyyəsinin qəbul elm dünyasında Big qəti Bang bir Bang modeligörməsinə ; gətirib çıxardı. Big gəlməsi və başlanğıcı elmin, kainatın haqqında meydana çatdığı son illər nöqtə Sabit idi. Fred Vəziyyət Hoyl ilə birlikdə uzun müdafiə edən Dennis Sciamanəzəriyyəsini , ard-arda gələn qarşısında və Big içinə Bangı düşdükləri isbat edən bütün bu dəlillər Sabit Vəziyyət nəzəriyyəsini vəziyyəti müdafiə belə izah edənlərləedir: , onu test edən və məncə onu müşahidəçilər arasında, bir dövr çürütməyə çox sərt ümid edən vardı. Bu dövr içində mən də çəkişmə götürmüşdümdeyil, gerçək . Çünki olmasını həqiqətinə bir istədiyim inandığım rol boynuma üçün "Sabit üçün Nəzəriyyənin Vəziyyət" nəzəriyyəsini etibarsızlığını isbat müdafiə edən edirdimdəlillər . ortaya qarşılamada çıxmağa yanında lider başladıqca rol boynuna Fred götürmüşdüHoyl bu . dəlilləri Mən də cavab verilə iştirak biləcəyi etmişmövzusunda , bu düşməncə fikir dəlillərə icra edirdimnecə - 17 -

Management is like sex - everyone thinks they’re good at it despite limited evidence.

The idea of an anthropic principle began with the remark that the laws of nature seem surprisingly well suited to the existence of life. A famous example is provided by the synthesis of the elements. According to modern ideas, this synthesis began when the universe was about three minutes old (before then it was too hot for protons and neutrons to stick together in atomic nuclei) and was later continued in stars. It had originally been though that the elements were formed by adding one nuclear particle at a time to atomic nuclei, starting with the simplest element, hydrogen, whose nucleus consists of just one particle (a proton). But, although there was no trouble in building up helium nuclei, which contain four nuclear particles (two protons and two neutrons), there is no stable nucleus with five nuclear particles and hence no way to take the next step. The solution found eventually by Edwin Salpeter in 1952 is that two helium nuclei can come together in stars to form the unstable nucleus of the isotope beryllium 8, which occasionally before it has a chance to fission into two helium nuclei absorbs yet another helium nucleus and forms a nucleus of carbon. However, as emphasized in 1954 by Fred Hoyke, in order for this process to account for the observed cosmic abundance of carbon, there must be a state of the carbon nucleus that has an energy that gives it an anomalously large probability of being formed in the collison of a helium nucleus and a nucleus of beryllium 8. (Precisely such a state was subsequently found by experimenters working with Hoyle.) Once carbon is formed in stars, there is no obstacle to building up all the heavier elements, including those like oxygen and nitrogen that are necessary for known forms of life. But in order for this to work, the energy of this state of the carbon nucleus must be very close to the energy of a nucleus of beryllium 8 plus the energy of a helium nucleus. If the energy of this state of the carbon nucleus were too large or too small, then little carbon or heavier elements would be formed in stars, and with only hydrogen and helium there would be no way that life could arise. The energies of nuclear states depend in a complicated way on all the constants of physics, such as the masses and electric charges of the different types of elementary particles. It seems at first sight remarkable that these constants should take just the values that are needed to make it possible for carbon to be formed in this way.

Random processes could not even form one of the necessary two thousand enzymes for life.

And as Fred Hoyle pointed out, if the combined masses of the proton and the electron were just a little larger instead of a little smaller than the mass of the neutron, the effect would be devastating. The hydrogen atom would be unstable. Throughout the universe all the hydrogen atoms would break down to form neutrons and neutrinos. The sun, already without nuclear combustible material, would have gone out and collapsed.

the precise resonance of the carbon atom necessary for its multiple abilities to link coincides perfectly with the resonance of oxygen, helium, and beryllium. If this incredibly remote coincidence had not occurred, then carbon would be extremely rare and therefore no carbon-based form of life would have come about. This precise resonance of the carbon atom is so surprising and improbable that it convinced Fred Hoyle to abandon his atheist faith and to be convinced in the existence of a “super-calculating intellect.

At that moment, the earth, needless to say, would be extinguished.271 Recall that Mr. Hoyle, who was nominated several times for the Nobel Prize, was a militant atheist until he “no longer had any alternative” but to become a theist.

My entire body wiggles and squirms, like I’ve been invaded by a hyperactive squirrel.

Stephen Jay Gould, E. O. Wilson, Lewis Thomas, and Richard Dawkins in biology; Steven Weinberg, Alan Lightman, and Kip Thorne in physics; Roald Hoffmann in chemistry; and the early works of Fred Hoyle in astronomy.

They wanted her to be happy, but they wouldn't let her go.

I know that you believe in something called Conservation of Matter. That you believe every atom in existence has been present in the universe since the beginning of, well, of everything. That each time something new is made — a new person, a new plant or animal — the atomic structure will contain atoms reused, recycled if you like, and that past life memories and so on may be a result of this. I know that you believe in the messages of your dreams and that you share the dream experiences. That you believe the Earth might have been seeded from elsewhere, either deliberately or by accident, but I don’t know why you think that.’ ‘Panspermia,’ Amy said. It was the first time she had spoken since Ray had sat down. ‘It’s becoming almost respectable now. People like Sir Geoffrey Hoyle are talking about it as a possibility. Did you know, for instance, that about 70 per cent of the Earth’s water had an extraterrestrial origin and there’s evidence of bacteria at least arriving with it?’ Ray shook his head. ‘I didn’t know that,’ he said. ‘But how does it fit with Lee?’ ‘Lee was a would-be alchemist,’ Amy said. ‘He believed in transmutation. We all do, it’s part of our religion: that the soul, the essence of life, can be transmuted and purified through meditation and living a good life. Through experience. Lee thought you could push the process faster. Like base metals into gold. Humankind into something else.’ ‘And this transmutation,’ Ray asked. ‘I mean, as part of your belief system, what are you hoping to achieve by it?

La probabilidad de que se forme la vida a partir de la materia inanimada es una en 1040.000... Es lo suficientemente grande como para sepultar a Darwin y toda la teoría de la evolución. No hubo un caldo primigenio, ni en este planeta ni en ningún otro, y si los inicios de la vida no fueron al azar, debieron haber sido el producto de la inteligencia con propósito”. Sir Fred Hoyle, profesor de astronomía de la Universidad de Cambridge.

He looks really old to be a detective,” Hoyle said. “He’s the oldest living detective in L.A.,” Ballard said. “But don’t tell him I said that. He’ll get mad.

Incompetence was Kingley's béte noire, not incompetence performed in private but incompetence paraded in public

The lies are of a scale and of a nature that in modern political life I think you can only compare to Donald Trump. I don't think anybody has lied or can lie as casually and as cooly and as completely as Boris Johnson does - accept Boris Johnson. We have learned over the last few weeks that his closest colleagues thought he was diabolical. The cabinet secretary that Boris Johnson appointed because he would prove to be, or he was believed to be, a soft touch has described Boris Johnson as being utterly unfit for the job. The advisor that he brought in as a sort of mastermind - having overseen Brexit - Dominick Cummings has described Johnson in terms that you would reserve for your worst enemies. These are the people working closest by him. The only person who's had anything vaguely warm to say about him is Matt Hancock and let me tell you why. They've shaken hands on it. I'd bet my house on some sort of gentleman's... let's rephrase that... I'd bet my house on some sort of charlatan’s agreement behind the scenes that they won't slag each other off because everybody else is telling the truth about them - about Johnson and about Hancock. Hancock's uselessness facilitated and enabled by Johnson's uselessness, by Johnson's moral corruption effectively. And now the lies begin. 5,000 WhatsApp messages. ‘No idea. No, no, no, no idea. Don't know. Don't know technical people. Uh... factory reset. Don't know. Bleep, bleep.’ And then the classic: the flooding of the Zone. With so much manure that it's hard to know where to start. ‘We may have made mistakes’ is one of the latest statements to come out. Turns up 3 hours early so that he doesn't have to walk the gamut of people congregating to remember their lost loved ones and to share their feelings with the man that they consider to be partly responsible for their death. Absolutely extraordinary scenes, truly extraordinary scenes. How does he get away with it? Hugo Keith is a much tougher inquisitor than Lindsay flipping Hoyle, the Speaker of the House of Commons. He's a much tougher inquisitor than any of the interviewers that Boris Johnson deigns to have his toes tickled by on a regular basis. He's a much tougher interviewer or scrutineer than the newspaper editors who have given him half a million pounds a year to write columns or already published articles about why he's the real victim in this story. Philip Johnston in the Daily Telegraph today writing an article before Boris Johnson has given a single syllable of evidence, claiming that Boris Johnson is the real victim of this. I'd love him to go and read that out to the Covid families assembled outside the inquiry. And remember it was Daily Telegraph columnists and former editors that convened at the Club with Jacob Rees-Mogg and others to launch the Save Owen Paterson Society after another one of these charlatans was found to have breached parliamentary standards. Their response of course was not to advise their ally to accept the punishment that was coming his way but to attempt to get him off the hook and rip up the rule book under which he'd been found to be guilty.

Connie is gone. I made a mistake that day at the airport, and she’s gone.

Maybe love isn’t something that can be earned through good work or destroyed by bad mistakes. Maybe true love is trusting someone or something so much that you feel safe enough to be yourself with them.

We toss words around, but we’re not really communicating.

I am too lazy to chase down the exact quotation, but the British astronomer Fred Hoyle said something to this effect: That believing in Darwin’s theoretical mechanisms of evolution was like believing that a hurricane could blow through a junkyard and build a Boeing 747. No matter what is doing the creating, I have to say that the giraffe and the rhinoceros are ridiculous. And so is the human brain, capable, in cahoots with the more sensitive parts of the body, such as the ding-dong, of hating life while pretending to love it, and behaving accordingly: “Somebody shoot me while I’m happy!

Hubble’s work confirmed his math—and refuted Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Furthermore, he deduced, if the universe was expanding equally in all directions, it must have initiated in a massive explosion from a single point. This meant that the universe is not infinitely old; it has a certain age, and that the moment of creation—which British astronomer Fred Hoyle later mockingly called the “big bang”—was analogous to God’s first command: Let there be light.

BASTARD.

When in doubt, win the trick.

Trust cannot grow in a garden of lies.” —Finding Emma

No, sir, is right. We are tranquil. And I'll tell you why. There are no aunts here. And in particular we are three thousand miles away from Mrs Dahlia Travers of Brinkley Manor, Market Snodsbury, Worcestershire. Don't get me wrong, Jeeves, I love the old flesh-and-blood. In fact I revere her. Nobody can say she isn't good company. But her moral code is lax. She cannot distinguish between what is according to Hoyle and what is not according to Hoyle. If she wants to do anything, she doesn't ask herself "Would Emily Post approve of this?", she goes ahead and does it, as she did in this matter of the cat. Do you know what is the trouble with aunts as a class?' 'No, sir.' 'They are not gentlemen,' I said gravely.