Flashes of Creation: George Gamow, Fred Hoyle, and the Great Big Bang Debate

I am delighted to announce that my new book, Flashes of Creation: George Gamow, Fred Hoyle, and the Great Big Bang Debate, is now available for pre-order.  The book offers a fast-paced excursion through the life and work of two brilliant, quirky physicists who were outstanding science popularizers, as well as insightful researchers.  Hoyle coined the term “Big Bang” during a BBC radio show, to describe the theory he was opposed to:  the idea that all matter was created during a hot,  ultra-dense period of the primordial cosmos.  Rather he believed in the steady-state theory of the continuous creation of matter.  The universe, he thought, lasts forever.  Gamow, the major public advocate of the Big Bang, begged to differ.  They debated in the pages of Scientific American and in competing popular books.

Flashes of Creation offers a joint biography of two of the most remarkable figures in 20th century science.  It features the insights of their colleagues, friends, and family members, gathered through archival research and detailed interviews.  It is a must for anyone interested in the “behind-the-scenes” account of the development of the Big-Bang theory and of its leading rival, the steady-state theory.

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