I have noted several times that the idea of a steady state universe was brilliant at the time it was proposed. In retrospect, the steady state universe, with its continuous creation of matter, shares many features with currently fashionable models of an inflationary universe: the conjecture that the cosmos experienced a faster-than-light growth spurt when it was a fraction of a second old. In some respects, the steady state universe is simply a universe in which inflation always occurs. Physicist Alan Guth proposed inflation in 1981 to explain, among other things, the cosmic homogeneity and isotropy. Hoyle enjoyed pointing out that in a paper he had published with Narlikar in 1963, they had shown that their proposed creation field “acts in such a way as to smooth out an initial anisotropy [dependence on direction] or inhomogeneity [departure from uniformity],” and that “it seems that the universe attains the observed regularity irrespective of initial boundary conditions.” These are precisely the properties now attributed to inflation. Hoyle’s brilliance was also revealed in the fact that he belonged to that small group of scientists capable of investigating two mutually inconsistent theories in parallel. In spite of continuing to hold out against the big bang for his entire life, Hoyle actually contributed important studies to big bang nucleosyntheses, in particular concerning the cosmic helium abundance and the synthesis of elements at very high temperatures.

Lord Rees described Hoyle once as “the most creative and original astrophysicist of his generation.” As a humble astrophysicist, I agree wholeheartedly. Hoyle’s theories, even when eventually proven wrong, were always dynamizing, and they unfailingly energized entire fields and catalyzed new ideas. It’s no wonder that Hoyle’s statue (figure 31) now stands just outside the building named after him at the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge, which he founded in 1966.

Figure 31

As momentous as Hoyle’s contributions have been, there is no question that the person who is most responsible for our current understanding of the workings of the cosmos at large is Albert Einstein. His theories of special and general relativity completely revolutionized our perspective on two of the most basic concepts in existence: space and time. Oddly, the phrase “biggest blunder” has become intimately associated with one of the ideas of this most iconic of all scientists.