The Black Cloud Society into the book. Hoyle was also responsible for the term "Big Bang", though Hoyle himself did not subscribe to the Big Bang theory in favour of his own Steady State Theory. In a plot twist that foreshadows Hoyle's stance on panspermia, the cloud expresses surprise that intelligent life is capable of forming on planets. The novel has a recurrent theme of the duplicity and shallowness of politicians compared with scientists. The Black Cloud The Black Cloud is a science fiction novel by British astrophysicist Fred Hoyle. Published in 1957, the book details the arrival of an enormous cloud of
The World's Last Night and Other Essays Cambridge. In 1958, Hoyle was Plumian professor of astronomy at Cambridge and engaged in the study of the structure and evolution of the stars. Even though he coined the phrase “Big Bang,” Hoyle rejected the ‘big bang’ theory of the origin of the universe in favor of the steady state theory, which claimed that the universe has always looked as it does now. Martin Ryle, however, held to the big bang theory for the creation of the universe in a moment, the theory that eventually held sway. Some of Hoyle’s writings, including science fiction and plays, popularized astronomy. Christopher H.