Hoyle And Gamow Analysis

Over our time as students, The Scientific Method was the basis of each and every science class we had taken. This Scientific Method was a set list of steps one must take in order to do any scientific experiment, no matter what the experiment may be or do. Though this is the usual way that scientific discoveries are published, this is not the usual way that science in general is done. In this case, when trying to discover the origins of the elements and find an explanation for how the creation of larger elements is possible, Fred Hoyle and George Gamow are both trying to prove that their respective theories of the universe, Steady-State and the Big Bang, are correct; however, they do not use the linear form of the Scientific Method, but rather

He had been studying red giants for years, and was intrigued by the idea of neurosynthesis, the process in which elements combine to create new elements. He was known as “the man who ridiculed over BBC radio any notion of an explosion at the beginning of the universe, derisively calling it the ‘Big Bang’” (Williams, Kruse, Clough, Stanley, & Kerton, n.d, p. 1). That takes us into the Exploration and Discovery section of our flowchart, specifically, the “Asking Questions” section. After Hoyle had sparked his initiative and asked his initial question, he began to become a key proponent in his own theory of the universe, the Steady-State Theory. This theory, developed in 1948 along with Hermann Bondi and Thomas Gold, eliminates the need for the universe to have a “beginning” (Williams et al., n.d., p. 1). He was working through was is labeled as the “Testing Ideas” section, specifically the “Gathering Ideas” section. To interpret these ideas, Hoyle created a “creation field”. This creation field was “a fundamental feature of the universe. Although vague on the exact details of how the field worked, Hoyle asserted that every billion years or so production of about three atomic nuclei per square foot was needed. These new nuclei then formed new stars and galaxies while the old ones just kept expanding forever onward” (Williams et al., n.d., p.

This set the scientific community up for more research on nucleosynthesis and supernovae. After this happened, Hoyle, whose curiosity was still unsatisfied, set out with Cambridge colleague, Roger Tayler, and they began to ask questions about the observed amounts of helium, as it was not explained by current stellar processes (Williams et al., n.d., p. 5).

While Hoyle was working on his Steady-State theory, George Gamow was working on his Big Bang theory. Inspired by his father, Abbé Georges LeMâitre, he began by asking the same question that Hoyle did, “‘how did all this matter come from nothing?’”. He then came up with his first model of the Big Bang nucleosynthesis, thus gathering data. He then interpreted that data by explaining that “there must have been a primordial lump of neutrons that would decay into the first hydrogen nuclei” (Williams et al., n.d., p. 2).

Gamow’s research then ventured to the “Exploration and Discovery” part of the flow chart, by asking questions about the abundance of heavier elements, and by making observations on his problems. For example, he explained that “no stable isotopes exist at the masses of five and eight” (Williams et al., n.d, p. 2). Gamow then returned to asking more questions and making more observations on Quantum