Fred Hoyle: the scientist whose rudeness cost him a Nobel prize
As the winners of this year's Nobel science prizes are about to be announced, Robin McKie looks back at the controversial life of groundbreaking scientist Fred Hoyle
The Observer, Sunday 3 October 2010
On 19 October 1983, US physicist Willy Fowler received a phone call that most scientists can only dream of. In careful tones, a member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences told him he had been awarded that year's Nobel prize for physics. His award, he was informed, had been given for his research that had helped reveal the stellar origins of the elements from which our bodies, solar system and universe are made.
Then came the shock. Fowler, who was 72 years old at the time, was told he would share the prize with Indian astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, who had carried out pioneering work on the structure of stars. Of Fowler's own close collaborator, Fred Hoyle – the British scientist who had led their joint research work – there was no mention.
Fred Hoyle in his laboratory at the Cambridge Institute of Astronomy in 1967. Photograph: Donne/Getty Images
The American physicist was stunned, he later admitted. And so were other scientists, men and women who remain puzzled by the omission to this day. "I have no idea how the Swedes decided to make an award to Chandrasekhar and Fowler but not to Hoyle," admits astronomer Lord Rees, president of the Royal Society. "However, I think it would be widely accepted that it was an unfair misjudgment."
In 1957, Hoyle and Fowler showed that all the elements from which our world is made – from carbon atoms to uranium atoms – had been cooked inside stars eons ago from a basic fuel of hydrogen. These heavy elements were then blasted into space in great stellar explosions called supernovae, where they later congealed into planets, mountains – and humans. We are stardust, in other words.
"There is no doubt that Fowler and Hoyle's 1957 paper is of Nobel quality and standing," says Hoyle's biographer, Simon Mitton, a Cambridge astronomer. "And in terms of understanding the chemical elements, Hoyle made the greater contribution when you compare it with Fowler's. The latter was a nuclear physicist who provided basic data. Hoyle provided the insights."
Scientists' dismay at the refusal to give Hoyle a Nobel prize is understandable, although it should be noted that he could be cantankerous and opinionated and had offended a large number of influential colleagues unused to his Yorkshire bluntness. He had called some of them liars and cheats in public, while his beliefs, in later life, verged on the lunatic. He said Earth was being constantly bombarded by microbes from outer space and that these were responsible for outbreaks of flu and other illnesses. He also claimed that remains of archaeopteryx – the British Museum fossil that demonstrates the early link between dinosaurs and birds – was a fake. Such notions went down badly in scientific circles.
But were they grounds for refusing Hoyle a Nobel prize? Understanding the origin of the elements was a major intellectual breakthrough. Who cares if he was a bit fruity about flu and fossils? And surely by awarding one scientist a Nobel prize for a piece of work while refusing to give it to the senior partner in the effort, the Swedish academy was being deliberately provocative? Was this a warning to scientists about the dangers of speaking out of turn?
Such issues raise timely questions about the nature of the Nobel prize. This week, the winners of the 2010 science Nobels will be revealed, with the announcement due tomorrow of the physiology prize. Those elevated will no doubt bask in some well-deserved publicity. Others will complain of major errors. "Every year I expect Stephen Hawking to be chosen and every year I am disappointed," says renowned theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson.
In the background, there is a growing feeling among senior scientists that the Nobels, which are now in their 110th year, need to change fundamentally. For example, in an era in which so much scientific research is generated by vast collaborative teams, is it right to limit each annual award to its current maximum of three? Already a row is brewing over who should be honoured with a Nobel if physicists finally discover the elusive Higgs boson, one of the main targets of the Large Hadron Collider at Cern near Geneva.
The Higgs is predicted to exist as part of a mechanism that gives other particles their mass, a theory developed independently by three groups in 1964. Two physicists in Brussels, François Englert and Robert Brout, were the first into print, followed by Peter Higgs at Edinburgh University. The third paper came from two US physicists, Gerald Guralnik and Carl Hagen, and Tom Kibble in London. The arithmetic leaves six men in contention for an award that can go to three people at most. Even before the Higgs particle has been discovered, tensions have reached a head, with the US physicists suspecting a European conspiracy to write their work out of history.
This point is stressed by Lord Rees. "The limit of three winners – a constraint that could surely be changed – leads to two problems. Sometimes, a major advance is a team effort and it would be better to recognise the team than just a maximum of three individuals. Sometimes, there are several people who have worked independently on a topic and it is then invidious to pick out just three."
Then there is the limit of physics, physiology (strictly physiology and medicine) and chemistry as individual topics for Nobel prizes in science. Should this total not be expanded to reflect the diversity of 21st-century research? This point was raised recently by a panel of distinguished scientists, including UK Nobel winner and cancer expert Tim Hunt, who suggested there should be Nobels for environmental science and climate change; research into public health; plant science; and evolutionary biology.
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