Fred Hoyle was one of the most widely acclaimed and colourful scientists of the twentieth century, a down-to-earth Yorkshireman who combined a brilliant scienti... » 

Fred Hoyle was one of the most widely acclaimed and colourful scientists of the twentieth century, a down-to-earth Yorkshireman who combined a brilliant scientific mind with a relish for communication and controversy. Best known for his steady-state theory of cosmology, he described a universe with both an infinite past and an infinite future. He showed how the elements are formed by nuclear reactions inside stars, and explained how we are therefore all formed from stardust. Jane Gregory paints a fascinating portrait of the relationship between science and the public during one of the most exciting periods in the development of our understanding of the Universe. «