Fred Hoyle
The Black Cloud
With an Afterword by Richard Dawkins
PENGUIN BOOKS
PENGUIN CLASSICS
Published by the Penguin Group
First published by Heinemann 1957
Preface
I hope that my scientific colleagues will enjoy this frolic. After all, there is very little here that could not conceivably happen.
Since institutional posts that actually exist are mentioned in the story, I have been at particular pains to ensure that the associated characters have no reference to actual holders of these posts.
It is commonplace to identify opinions forcibly expressed by a character with the author’s own. At the risk of triviality, I would add that this association may be unwarranted.
Prologue
The episode of the Black Cloud has always had a great fascination for me. The thesis that won me my Fellowship at Queens’ College, Cambridge, was concerned with some aspects of this epic event. This work was later published, after suitable modifications, as a chapter in Sir Henry Clayton’s History of the Black Cloud, much to my gratification.
It was not altogether surprising therefore that Sir John McNeil, our late Senior Fellow and well-known physician, should have willed to me on his death a voluminous collection of papers dealing with his own personal experiences of the Cloud. More surprising, however, was the letter that accompanied the papers. It read:
Queens’ College,
19 August 2020
My dear Blythe,
I trust you will forgive an old man for chuckling occasionally to himself over some of your speculations concerning the Black Cloud.