The Nature Of The Universe by Fred Hoyle
The Black Cloud by Fred Hoyle
The Triumph Of Time/A Clash Of Cymbals by James Blish
Midsummer Century by James Blish
Starfarers by Poul Anderson
Scientific data, scientific theories and science fiction interact:
the cosmic red shift is a datum;
cosmological models are theories;
cosmic journeys are fictions.
In The Nature Of the Universe, Fred Hoyle postulated that mass generates not only gravitational fields but also a creation field to explain why, according to his steady state theory, cosmic expansion does not cause cosmic dissipation. In The Black Cloud, an intelligent gas cloud does not agree that the universe had a beginning. However, the steady state theory was soon disproved and is described as nonsense by a future intelligence in Midsummer Century.
The remaining contributions by Blish and Anderson are more complicated and will require a further post.
2 comments:
Paul:
And Blish's _original_ *Star Trek* novel, *Spock Must Die!*, included the mirrored Spock creating a power supply system that drew energy from "Hilbert space" — from the source of continuous creation. Scotty called that "like having a [some number of amperes] plug directly into God. I'll hae nothing to do with thot."
David,
Thank you for remembering a Blish connection that I had forgotten.
Paul.
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