Modern astrophysics appears to be inexorably forcing us away from a universe of finite space and time, in which the future holds nothing but a general running down or heat death, towards a universe in which both space and time are infinite. The possibilities of physical evolution, and perhaps even of life, may well be without limit. These are the issues that stand to-day before the astronomer. Within a generation we hope that they can be settled with reasonable certainty.

Paradoxically, even though later in life Hoyle criticized natural selection (claiming a role for panspermia, or life as a cosmic phenomenon), the origin of this line of thinking could be traced back to Darwin. Recall that Darwin was concerned about Kelvin’s estimate of the age of the Earth because he feared that with the restricted age there wasn’t sufficient time for evolution to operate. Hoyle here alludes to an advantage of the steady state theory: A universe that has always existed and will exist forever affords an infinite amount of time for life to emerge and to evolve. We shall return to this question later, when we’ll discuss the possible reasons for Hoyle’s stubborn clinging to the steady state idea.

Following the presentations by Gold, Bondi, and Hoyle, the president of the Royal Astronomical Society, astronomer William Greaves, opened the subsequent discussion with a somewhat sarcastic remark: “Cosmology is one department of astronomy—sometimes I suspect its adherents of thinking it is the only part—but we all agree that it is a most important part.” As it so happened, one of the most distinguished physicists of the twentieth century, Max Born, was in attendance. When asked for his reaction to the steady state model, Born said:

I am overawed by the whole character of the cosmologists! After the initial discoveries of atomic physics, physicists continue to find new particles at frequent intervals: so in cosmology we shall continue to discover new theories of world structure and evolution . . . I am filled with gratitude at hearing these papers, but I am skeptical.

The first signs of trouble for the steady state model came not from optical telescopes but from radio astronomy. The universe is essentially transparent to radio waves, and, consequently, the antennae of radio telescopes could pick up signals even from distant (but “active” in the radio spectral range) galaxies that could barely be detected optically. In the 1950s, British and Australian scientists put to good use the expertise gained during World War II to develop a strong radio astronomy program. One of the pioneers in this endeavor was a physicist from the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge: Martin Ryle.