The spirit of inquiry

Mumbai: Fred Hoyle was arguably the most imaginative astrophysicist of the 20th century. While he contributed enormously to our understanding of the cosmos, there were many issues on which he differed from the mainstream. The ideas like the origin of the universe in a big bang, or the life on Earth being entirely of terrestrial origin, etc. were the bandwagon views that he vehemently opposed. In the 1950s, he proposed the hypothesis that our galaxy contains large clouds of molecules, both organic and inorganic.

His paper on this idea was, however, rejected by the established research journals as being too speculative. To get this idea across, he chose an unusual medium. He wrote a science-fiction novel called The Black Cloud. The novel became very popular and made the idea widely known. However, when in the 1960s, new astronomical techniques led to the discovery of giant molecular clouds just as he had predicted, Fred had the last laugh. He had this independence of view right from childhood.

In an account of childhood days entitled, The Small World of Fred Hoyle, he has narrated his experiences of school days in a small town of Yorkshire. Being independent minded, whenever he encountered some mystery, instead of relying on what the seniors told him, he preferred to work it out for himself. Thus, it was at the age of three he discovered how a clock works in telling the time. In school, his questioning the teacher to settle his doubts led to conflicts.

An incident when he was nine illustrates the friction. His class teacher asked all children to collect samples of a certain flower. The teacher told them that the flower has five petals and asked them to verify the fact. As all children came back with their samples, Fred brought a flower (of the same variety) that had six petals. He asked the teacher why that particular sample had six petals. Was it not a contradiction of the five-petal rule that the teacher had stated? He added that if a flower with only four petals were found one could explain the fact by assuming that one petal had fallen off. But, how do you explain an extra petal?

Fred expected to be patted on the back for finding something unusual. The teacher on the other hand was annoyed at being contradicted and gave a slap on the ear to the budding scientist. This reaction was totally unexpected for the young boy. On returning home he announced to his mother that he was quitting his school where arguments were settled in this one-sided fashion. His mother heard the episode and agreed with him. However, the state law required all children to go to some school or other. In her meeting with the headmaster and later with the local education authorities, it was decided to let the boy complete the term at home and after passing the end of term test he would be sent to another school.

Towards the end of the primary education, there was a special examination to pick bright pupils who were given a state scholarship. Fred, who was spotted by his teachers at the second school, was encouraged to appear in the scholarship examination. He did, but the result did not favour him. However, there was a general uproar against the result announced since it favoured pupils from bigger towns or cities but ignored talent from smaller places, villages, etc. A reassessment of the performance, including an interview, recognised Fred’s original thinking with the award of a scholarship.

Fred Hoyle describes an interesting episode consequent on his being awarded the scholarship. He used to walk to school everyday and this meant a walk of at least two miles each way. He was informed that his scholarship entitled him to the bus fare provided the distance from his home to the school exceeded two miles. His father, therefore, put in an application for this grant stating that the track followed by any transport from his house to school exceeded the two-mile limit. The local authorities sent an officer from the accounts section to verify the claim. This man found that the claim was correct so far as vehicular traffic was concerned. But he explored the territory further and found that by using suitable footpaths and negotiating a hilly terrain Fred could bring down the distance to just under two miles. Given this information, the authorities turned down the application. This shows that the bureaucrats from the account department are the same all over the world when it comes to saving the money of the exchequer.

Anyway, the scholarship served as a marker that this boy had special talents and for the more ambitious of such students, Cambridge Univer-sity (and, of course, its rival at Oxford) presented a likely goal. Coming from a tiny and academically isolated pocket of Yorkshire, Fred was greatly helped by his mentor Alan Smailes, the headmaster of his school in planning his future. Smailes had been to Cambridge and he encouraged Fred to try for entry to Emmanuel College at Cambridge.

A tough entrance examination had to be negotiated. Hoyle recalls how Smailes helped in preparing for the test but the time was too short. So he had to rely on his own efforts and the self-earned knowledge in physics, chemistry and mathematics. By contrast, his fellow examinees came largely from established schools of reputation. These schools ensured that their students had been well coached and would be far better placed in dealing with the Cambridge entrance questions. Indeed the situation was similar to today’s coaching classes training students for the JEE for getting into the IITs. However, the Cambridge examiners took extra trouble to set new questions.

Commenting on the Cambridge system, Hoyle writes: “Every effort was made… to award scholarships to pupils, not to schoolmasters”. So, the questions set would demand thinking on the spot and rote learning did not help. Thus, Hoyle’s independent thinking served him well in eventually getting into Cambridge. At Cambridge, he performed well winning the Mayhew Prize at the final examination and the prestigious Smith’s Prize for early research in mathematics. He was on his way to becoming one of the Cambridge stars.

— The writer, a renowned astrophysicist, is professor emeritus at Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune University Campus