he and his student John Shakeshaft: Described in the Proceedings of Meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society 886, pp. 104–6.

“glad to see that there is now”: Gold 1955.

Bondi was also skeptical: Bondi 1955.

“Was I being uncharitable in thinking”: Hoyle 1994, p. 410.

The discovery of extremely active galaxies: For an excellent popular description of the discovery of quasars, of the microwave background, and their significance see, eg, Rees 1997.