Fred Hoyle

Sir Fred Hoyle (1915-2001) was an astronomer, cosmologist, and science fiction author. He was born in Yorkshire, England, in 1915. He read mathematics at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and then went on to teach the subject at the university. Later he moved to the United States to become a professor of astronomy and philosophy at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

Hoyle championed the steady state of cosmology, and coined the phrase "big bang" as a way of ridiculing an alternative theory (which, however, is now widely accepted).