Biography Fred Hoyle cosmologist, astronomer, controversialist

My 2005 biography of astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle (1915 - 2001) is to be issued by Cambridge University Press in paperback early in 2011. Title is Fred Hoyle, a life in science.

I See the Moon on 7 October 2010

An engaging astronomy book for youngest readers by Jacqueline Mitton is published in the UK 7 October 2010 (and is available worldwide from amazon). From the author of bestseller The Zoo in the Sky this new book approaches observing the Moon through the eyes of animals that children love. Polar Bear sees a Ring Around the Moon, Beaver sees the orange Moon in lunar eclipse, Tiger watched the crescent Moon. What's the Moon like tonight. Turn the pages with a very young star struck child to see the enchanting story of the Moon's phases. Find more here and follow the links on that page.

I See the Moon, astronomy for young readers

Jacqueline Mitton's latest illustrated book for youngest readers is published October 7 2010. "I see the Moon" is a wonderful book in which the child sees the Moon through the eyes of several animals: Owl, Polar Bear, Koala, Tiger, Fox, and so on.

What is the Moon like tonight? Turn the pages of this book to see the many enchanting phases - from a horned crescent to the plump faced Man in the Moon, from the icy crystal ring around the Moon to the dark orange eclipse - watched by Owl, Beaver, Koala, and Spider Monkey

Brief science notes make this a perfect introduction to the night sky for very young readers

USA:
http://www.amazon.com/I-See-Moon-Jacqueline-Mitton/dp/1845076338/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1281371593&sr=8-1

UK: http://bit.ly/cuXrAZ

Queen Mary 2 astronomy lectures

I am all aboard Queen Mary 2 October 19 - October 25 2010 as Royal Astronomical Society guest lecturer on astronomy for Cunard's enrichment programme

Stephen Hawking, God, philosophy,science and religion

My Cambridge colleague Stephen Hawking is front page news with his comment that the originof the universe does not require a supernatural creator. This is all part of a marketing push by the publisher of his latest book,and follows a trend set by Richard Dawkins, Steven Weinberg, and Pierre-Simon Laplace (Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là.' "I had no need of that hypothesis.")

But has Stephen said anything new? I have not read the book, but the news coverage fails to mention that the anthropic principle, for example, was first put forward by one of Hawking's Cambridge colleagues about 30 years ago. There's nothing remotely new in the observation that the grand total energy content of the universe can be zero. In the late 1920s the Cambridge astrophysicist Eddington had a model in which a primeval atom is static and unchanging for eons until suddenly bursting into life explosively. So the application of quantum ideas to cosmology has along and respectable history.

I'm curious about Stephen's attack on philosophers. Perhaps modern philosophers have become too introverted for his taste. Cosmology was started 2500 years ago by philosopher-geometers who broke away from the magical philosophy of Egypt and Mesopotamia

You can read my take on the recent history of cosmology at Cambridge in my biography of Fred Hoyle, the astronomer who rjected the Big Bang. http://bit.ly/6rvVr

There's a .ppt slide show on Hoyle on this site: http://bit.ly.TOTast

Panspermia in the International Journal of Astrobiology

Folks we have a hot paper! Panspermia, comets, Chandra Wickramasinghe (Cardiff)

It is in the news

panspermia is big news

Bizarre paper submitted to International Journal Astrobiology

Having spent most of my career as an editor of books and journals on astronomy, I get my fair share of nutty proposals. Six weeks ago I had a book proposal explaining the expansion of the universe as being due to misinterpreting redshifts as Doppler shifts rather than "tired light". But today I received the ultimate nutty paper for the International Journal of Astrobiology. It was all about a meteorite that contained fossilised blood vessels. I am not making this up: fossil blood vessels in a meteorite. A mere glance at the photographs confirmed that the object in question was slag. So another paper for my growing rejection pile!