Science: An Evolving Universe?

To the big cosmic questions—How did the universe begin? How will it end?—British Cosmologist Fred Hoyle had a pair of startling answers: It had no beginning and will have no end. Instead, according to Hoyle. the universe is a steady state that is infinite in space and time and has a constant density maintained by the creation of new matter to compensate for the thinning of matter by expansion (TIME, Sept. 26).

Writing in Scientific American, two astronomers—Briton Martin Ryle and American Allan R. Sandage—theorize that Hoyle's steady-state universe does not jibe with cosmic...