 Cover of the first edition | |
| Author | Fred Hoyle |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Desmond Skirrow |
| Language | English |
| Published | 1957 William Heinemann Ltd |
| Media type | Print (book) |
| ISBN | 0-451-11432-9 |
The Black Cloud is a 1957 science fiction novel by British astrophysicist Fred Hoyle. It details the arrival of an enormous cloud of gas that enters the Solar System and appears about to destroy most of the life on Earth by blocking the Sun's radiation.
In 1964, astrophysicists on Earth became aware of a cloud of gas and dust, initially thought to be a Bok globule, that is heading for the Solar System. The cloud, if interposed between the Sun and the Earth, could wipe out most of the life on Earth by blocking solar radiation and ending photosynthesis, thus the name "The Black Cloud". A cadre of astronomers and other scientists is drawn together in Nortonstowe, England, to study the cloud and report to the British government about the consequences of its presence.
The cloud unexpectedly decelerates as it approaches and comes to rest around the Sun, causing disastrous climatic changes on Earth and immense mortality and suffering for the human race. As the behaviour of the cloud proves to be impossible to predict scientifically, the team at Nortonstowe eventually come to the conclusion that it might be a life-form with a degree of intelligence. The scientists try to communicate with the cloud, and succeed. The cloud is revealed to be an alien gaseous superorganism, many times more intelligent than humans, which is surprised to find intelligent life-forms on a solid planet. It reconfigures itself to allow sunlight to return to the Earth and humanity is saved.
Although its ill-effects on humanity have ceased, several governments are mistrustful of the cloud and prepare a nuclear attack upon it. When the scientists alert the cloud of this plot – risking imprisonment for treason and passing on military secrets – it turns the missiles back upon their senders, killing thousands of people, but does not otherwise retaliate. When the astronomers ask the cloud how its lifeform originated, it replies that they have always existed. One of the characters suggests this is incompatible with the Big Bang theory.
The cloud announces that another nearby (by the cloud's standards) intelligent cloud has suddenly stopped communicating and may have vanished. This has apparently happened many times before, often in conjunction with attempts to understand if there is a super-intelligence even more powerful than the clouds, and is a long-standing mystery to the clouds; the cloud therefore decides to leave the Solar System to investigate. During their last few days of communication two of the scientists try to learn some of the cloud's vast store of knowledge through visual signals, in order to gain further insights about the Universe. Both of them die in the attempt, their brains being overloaded.
However, a comrade of theirs gives a roll of punched paper-tape to a young man about 50 years later, saying it contains the code to contact the cloud. The young man wonders what to do with the information, and whether humanity should be a "big fish in a small pond", cut off from the cloud, or a "small fish in a big pond", in communication with a higher intelligence in the galaxy.
The Spectator described it as "delightful and fascinating," despite the "slightly chilling" implication of the scientists' attitude to the victims. [1] Galaxy reviewer Floyd C. Gale stated that he had not expected "such a noted cosmological theorist" as Hoyle to be a fiction writer but praised the novel "for the high quality of the narrative." Gale stated that "[w]ith the utmost of apparent ease, Hoyle writes a brand of humor that eludes the pens of pros," and hoped that he would "write more superior fictional ventures like this." [2] Damon Knight described Hoyle's plotting as "masterly," saying the novel was "more elaborately convincing and a lot livelier than the usual gloom-laden treatment" in similar stories. [3] Richard Dawkins (writing in the 2010 Penguin Classics reissue) claimed the novel was "one of the greatest science fiction novels ever written." [4]
Although the presence of a sentient cloud of gas may seem unlikely, the story is grounded in hard science. [5] The detection of the cloud is described using physics equations, all of which are included in the book. Hoyle brought his experience and knowledge as the Director of the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge, a Fellow of the Royal Society, into the book.
In a plot twist that foreshadows Hoyle's stance on panspermia, the cloud expresses surprise that intelligent life is capable of forming on planets.
Speculative discussions among the fictional scientists about the nature of an encountered extraterrestrial life form (the black cloud), and the reasoning applied to decide that this new entity can be regarded as a form of life, is a major theme of the novel. These scientific discussions relative to a broadly inclusive definition of life, including extraterrestrial life, likely reflected possibilities considered plausible by Fred Hoyle.
The novel has a recurrent theme of the duplicity and shallowness of politicians compared with scientists.
The Drake equation is a probabilistic argument used to estimate the number of active, communicative extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way Galaxy.
Extraterrestrial life, alien life, or colloquially simply aliens is life which does not originate from Earth. No extraterrestrial life has yet been conclusively detected. Such life might range from simple forms such as prokaryotes to intelligent beings, possibly bringing forth civilizations that might be far more advanced than humanity. The Drake equation speculates about the existence of sapient life elsewhere in the universe. The science of extraterrestrial life is known as astrobiology.
Sir Fred Hoyle (24 June 1915 – 20 August 2001) was an English astronomer who formulated the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis and was one of the authors of the influential B2FH paper. He also held controversial stances on other scientific matters—in particular his rejection of the "Big Bang" theory (a term coined by him on BBC Radio) in favor of the "steady-state model", and his promotion of panspermia as the origin of life on Earth. He spent most of his working life at St John's College, Cambridge and served as the founding director of the Institute of Theoretical Astronomy at Cambridge.
The Fermi paradox is the discrepancy between the lack of conclusive evidence of advanced extraterrestrial life and the apparently high likelihood of its existence. As a 2015 article put it, "If life is so easy, someone from somewhere must have come calling by now."
Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and their overall evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, galaxies, meteoroids, asteroids, and comets. Relevant phenomena include supernova explosions, gamma ray bursts, quasars, blazars, pulsars, and cosmic microwave background radiation. More generally, astronomy studies everything that originates beyond Earth's atmosphere. Cosmology is a branch of astronomy that studies the universe as a whole.
Nemesis is a science fiction novel by American writer Isaac Asimov. One of his later science fiction novels, it was published in 1989, three years before his death. The novel is loosely related to the future history of his Robot Series, Empire Series, and Foundation Series, into which Asimov attempted to integrate his science fiction output. This novel is connected to Asimov's other works by several ideas from earlier and later novels, including non-human intelligence, sentient astronomical bodies ("Hallucination"), and rotor engines.
The Kardashev scale is a method of measuring a civilization's level of technological advancement based on the amount of energy it is capable of harnessing and using. The measure was proposed by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev (1932–2019) in 1964 and was named after him.
Extraterrestrial intelligence, or non-human intelligence, refers to hypothetical intelligent extraterrestrial life. No such life has ever been proven to exist in the Solar System except for humans on Earth, and its existence on other star systems is still speculative. The question of whether other inhabited worlds might exist has been debated since ancient times. The modern form of the concept emerged when the Copernican Revolution demonstrated that the Earth was a planet revolving around the Sun, and other planets were, conversely, other worlds. The question of whether other inhabited planets or moons exist was a natural consequence of this new understanding. It has become one of the most speculative questions in science and is a central theme of science fiction and popular culture.
Iosif Samuilovich Shklovsky was a Soviet astronomer and astrophysicist. He is remembered for work in theoretical astrophysics and other topics, as well as for his 1962 book on extraterrestrial life, the revised and expanded version of which was co-authored by American astronomer Carl Sagan in 1966 as Intelligent Life in the Universe.
The concept of self-replicating spacecraft, as envisioned by mathematician John von Neumann, has been described by futurists and has been discussed across a wide breadth of hard science fiction novels and stories. Self-replicating probes are sometimes referred to as von Neumann probes. Self-replicating spacecraft would in some ways either mimic or echo the features of living organisms or viruses.
A for Andromeda is a British television science fiction drama serial first made and broadcast by the BBC in seven parts in 1961. Written by cosmologist Fred Hoyle, in conjunction with author and television producer John Elliot, it concerns a group of scientists who detect a radio signal from another galaxy that contains instructions for the design of an advanced computer. When the computer is built, it gives the scientists instructions for the creation of a living organism named Andromeda, but one of the scientists, John Fleming, fears that Andromeda's purpose is to subjugate humanity.
Carbon chauvinism is a neologism meant to disparage the assumption that the chemical processes of hypothetical extraterrestrial life must be constructed primarily from carbon because as far as is known, carbon's chemical and thermodynamic properties render it far superior to all other elements at forming molecules used in living organisms.
Cosmic dust – also called extraterrestrial dust, space dust, or star dust – is dust that occurs in outer space or has fallen onto Earth. Most cosmic dust particles measure between a few molecules and 0.1 mm (100 μm), such as micrometeoroids. Larger particles are called meteoroids. Cosmic dust can be further distinguished by its astronomical location: intergalactic dust, interstellar dust, interplanetary dust, and circumplanetary dust. There are several methods to obtain space dust measurement.
"Goldfish Bowl" is a science fiction short story by American author Robert A. Heinlein, first published in Astounding Science Fiction in March 1942, and collected in one of Heinlein's anthologies, The Menace from Earth.
Cosmic Odyssey is a 2002 Canadian documentary television series about the cosmos, created by Avanti Pictures, narrated by William Shatner, and produced by Soapbox Entertainment for The Discovery Channel. In 2003, Schlessinger Media released the series in VHS video format. As of 2007, the series is syndicated on The Science Channel.
The history of scientific thought about the formation and evolution of the Solar System began with the Copernican Revolution. The first recorded use of the term "Solar System" dates from 1704. Since the seventeenth century, philosophers and scientists have been forming hypotheses concerning the origins of our Solar System and the Moon and attempting to predict how the Solar System would change in the future. René Descartes was the first to hypothesize on the beginning of the Solar System; however, more scientists joined the discussion in the eighteenth century, forming the groundwork for later hypotheses on the topic. Later, particularly in the twentieth century, a variety of hypotheses began to build up, including the now-commonly accepted nebular hypothesis.
Ossian's Ride is a science fiction novel by British astrophysicist Fred Hoyle, published in 1959.
Comets have appeared in works of fiction since at least the 1830s. They primarily appear in science fiction as literal objects, but also make occasional symbolical appearances in other genres. In keeping with their traditional cultural associations as omens, they often threaten destruction to Earth. This commonly comes in the form of looming impact events, and occasionally through more novel means such as affecting Earth's atmosphere in different ways. In other stories, humans seek out and visit comets for purposes of research or resource extraction. Comets are inhabited by various forms of life ranging from microbes to vampires in different depictions, and are themselves living beings in some stories.
The cultural impact of extraterrestrial contact is the corpus of changes to terrestrial science, technology, religion, politics, and ecosystems resulting from contact with an extraterrestrial civilization. This concept is closely related to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), which attempts to locate intelligent life as opposed to analyzing the implications of contact with that life.
The Eerie Silence: Renewing Our Search for Alien Intelligence is a 2010 popular science book by Paul Davies, chair of the SETI: Post-Detection Science and Technology Taskgroup of the International Academy of Astronautics. The Eerie Silence explores the possibilities of intelligent extraterrestrial life, and its potential consequences.