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Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

Fred Hoyle*
Affiliation:
102 Admiral’s Walk, West Cliff, Bournemouth, England

Extract

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The word 'origin' is one of the most widely used in science. Yet it seems to me to be always used either improperly or ineffectively. Ineffective uses have a derivative quality about them. As an example, suppose we ask: What was the 'origin' of the magnetic field of the Sun? The best answer I suppose is that the magnetic field of the Sun was formed by the compression of a magnetic field that was present already in the gases of the molecular cloud in which the Sun and Solar System were formed some 4.5 X 109 years ago. But what then was the 'origin' of the field in the molecular cloud? It was present already in the gases from which our galaxy was formed, one might suggest. A further displacement then takes us to the manner of 'origin' of t he entire universe, so that no ultimate explanation has really been given. The problem has only been displaced along a chain until it passes into a mental fog through which some claim to see clearly but through which others, including myself, do not see at all.

Type
V. Long Term Future Issues
Copyright
Copyright © Kluwer 1990

References

Hoyle, F.: 1989, Comments on Astrophysics 13, 81 Google Scholar
Arp, H.C., Burbidge, G., Hoyle, F., Narlikar, J.V., Wickramasinghe, S: 1990, Nature, in pressGoogle Scholar