Subject: Re: Goopher Feathers & a Big Bang (1949)

[James A. Landau]

I can't tell if this message made it to the ADS-L list, so I'm resubmitting.
Please do not hesitate to use the delete key.


In a message dated 09/23/2001 9:24:10 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
Bapopik at AOL.COM writes:

>   I'll end with a bang.  Fred Hoyle, who died recently, coined his "Big
Bang"
> theory in 1950.

The "Big Bang" theory was proposed by the Abbe/ George Lemai^tre (that's an
acute accent and a circumflex respectively) in 1933.  Fred Hoyle was for many
years one of the leading opponents of the Big Bang theory.  He and Herman
Bondi and Thomas Gold of Cambridge University proposed the rival "Steady
State" theory in 1948.

I have no information on when the name "Big Bang" was applied to Lemai^tre's
theory.

You may be interested to know that the PC Police (when did that phrase
originate?) are after "Big Bang", claiming it is a sexist name.

Another interesting story about the Big Bang Theory concerns a variation of
it proposed in a paper by George Gamow, Ralph A. Alpher, and Hans Bethe.  I
have no idea whether this story be true, but it is claimed that Bethe had
nothing to do with the paper---his name was attached to it by Gamow with
malice aforethought, so that it could be called the "Alpher-Bethe-Gamow"
theory.  According to my father, the theory went on the rocks and Bethe
announced that he was going to change his name to Zacharias.

      James A. Landau
      Systems Engineer
      FAA Technical Center (ACT-350/BCI)
      Atlantic City Airport NJ 08405 USA