HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Thomas Gold (May 22, 1920 – June 22, 2004) was an
Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...
n-born astrophysicist, who also held British and American citizenship. He was a professor of
astronomy 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 includ ...
at
Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...
, a member of the U.S.
National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...
, and a
Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the Fellows of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...
(London). Gold was one of three young
Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...
scientists who in 1948 proposed the now mostly abandoned "steady state" hypothesis of the
universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents. It comprises all of existence, any fundamental interaction, physical process and physical constant, and therefore all forms of matter and energy, and the structures they form, from s ...
. Gold's work crossed boundaries of academic and scientific disciplines, into
biophysics Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations ...
,
astronomy 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 includ ...
,
aerospace engineering Aerospace engineering is the primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecraft. It has two major and overlapping branches: aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering. Avionics engineering is s ...
, and
geophysics Geophysics () is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and Physical property, properties of Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. Geophysicists conduct i ...
.


Early life

Gold was born on May 22, 1920, in
Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
,
Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...
, to Max Gold, a wealthy
Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
industrialist (pre-war) who ran one of Austria's largest mining and metal fabrication companies, and German former actress Josefine Martin. Following the economic downfall of the European mining industry in the late 1920s, Max Gold moved his family to Berlin, where he had taken a job as director of a metal trading company.. Following the start of
Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...
leader
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...
's anti-Jewish campaigns in 1933, Gold and his family left Germany because of his father's heritage. The family travelled through Europe for the next few years. Gold attended
boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. They have existed for many centuries, and now extend acr ...
at the
Lyceum Alpinum Zuoz Lyceum Alpinum Zuoz is an international boarding school in Zuoz, near St. Moritz in Switzerland. Founded in 1904, it is located in the upper part of the alpine village in the area of Surmulins. There are around 300 pupils, including 220 in the ...
in
Zuoz Zuoz () is a municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the Maloja Region in the Switzerland, Swiss Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Graubünden. History Zuoz is first mentioned about 840 as ''Zuzes''. Historically, Zuoz was the political ce ...
,
Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...
, where he quickly proved to be a clever, competitive and physically and mentally aggressive individual.. Gold finished his schooling at Zuoz in 1938, and fled with his family to
England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
after the German invasion of Austria in early 1938. Gold entered
Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any ...
in 1939 and began studying mechanical sciences. In May 1940, just as Hitler was commencing his advance in
Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...
and
France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
, Gold was sent into
internment Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without Criminal charge, charges or Indictment, intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects ...
as an
enemy alien In customary international law, an enemy alien is any alien native, citizen, denizen or subject of any foreign nation or government with which a domestic nation or government is in conflict and who is liable to be apprehended, restrained, secur ...
by the British government. It was on the first night of internment, at an army barracks in
Bury St Edmunds Bury St Edmunds (), commonly referred to locally as ''Bury,'' is a cathedral as well as market town and civil parish in the West Suffolk District, West Suffolk district, in the county of Suffolk, England.OS Explorer map 211: Bury St. Edmunds an ...
, that he met his future collaborator and close friend,
Hermann Bondi Sir Hermann Bondi (1 November 1919 – 10 September 2005) was an Austrian-British people, British mathematician and physical cosmology, cosmologist. He is best known for developing the steady state model of the universe with Fred Hoyle and Thom ...
... Gold spent most of his nearly 15 months of internment in a camp in Canada, after which he returned to England and reentered Cambridge University, where he abandoned his study of mechanical sciences for
physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...
. After graduating with a pass (Ordinary) degree in June 1942, Gold worked briefly as an agricultural
labourer A laborer ( or labourer) is a person who works in manual labor typed within the construction industry. There is a generic factory laborer which is defined separately as a factory worker. Laborers are in a working class of wage-earners in which ...
and
lumberjack Lumberjack is a mostly North American term for workers in the logging industry who perform the initial harvesting and transport of trees. The term usually refers to loggers in the era before 1945 in the United States, when trees were felled us ...
in northern England before joining Bondi and
Fred Hoyle 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, B2FH paper. He also held controversial stances on oth ...
on naval research into radar ground clutter near
Dunsfold Dunsfold is a villages in England, village and civil parish in the Waverley, Surrey, borough of Waverley, Surrey, England, south of Guildford. It lies in the Weald and reaches in the north the southern escarpment of the Greensand Ridge. It inc ...
,
Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...
. The three men would spend their off-duty hours in "intense and wide-ranging scientific discussion" on topics such as
cosmology Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe, the cosmos. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', with the meaning of "a speaking of the wo ...
,
mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...
and
astrophysics Astrophysics is a science that employs the methods and principles of physics and chemistry in the study of astronomical objects and phenomena. As one of the founders of the discipline, James Keeler, said, astrophysics "seeks to ascertain the ...
.. Within months, Gold was placed in charge of constructing new radar systems. Gold determined how
landing craft Landing craft are small and medium seagoing watercraft, such as boats and barges, used to convey a landing force (infantry and vehicles) from the sea to the shore during an amphibious assault. The term excludes landing ships, which are larger. ...
could use radar to navigate to the appropriate landing spot on
D-Day The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during the Second World War. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as ...
and also discovered that the German navy had fitted snorkels to its
U-boat U-boats are Submarine#Military, naval submarines operated by Germany, including during the World War I, First and Second World Wars. The term is an Anglicization#Loanwords, anglicized form of the German word , a shortening of (), though the G ...
s, making them operable underwater while still taking in air from above the surface.


Schooling and work in England

Immediately after the war, Hoyle and Bondi returned to Cambridge, while Gold stayed with naval research until 1947. He then began working at Cambridge's
Cavendish Laboratory The Cavendish Laboratory is the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, and is part of the School of Physical Sciences. The laboratory was opened in 1874 on the New Museums Site as a laboratory for experimental physics and is named ...
to help construct the world's largest
magnetron The cavity magnetron is a high-power vacuum tube used in early radar systems and subsequently in microwave oven, microwave ovens and in linear particle accelerators. A cavity magnetron generates microwaves using the interaction of a stream of ...
, a device invented by two British scientists in 1940 that generated intense
microwave Microwave is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths shorter than other radio waves but longer than infrared waves. Its wavelength ranges from about one meter to one millimeter, corresponding to frequency, frequencies between 300&n ...
s for radar. Soon after, Gold joined R. J. Pumphrey, a
zoologist Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the structure, embryology, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct, and how they interact with their ecosystems. Zoology is one ...
at the Cambridge Zoology Laboratory who had served as the deputy head of radar naval research during the war, to study the effect of
resonance Resonance is a phenomenon that occurs when an object or system is subjected to an external force or vibration whose frequency matches a resonant frequency (or resonance frequency) of the system, defined as a frequency that generates a maximu ...
on the
human ear In vertebrates, an ear is the organ that enables hearing and (in mammals) body balance using the vestibular system. In humans, the ear is described as having three parts: the outer ear, the middle ear and the inner ear. The outer ear cons ...
.


Theory of human hearing

Via simple experimentation in 1946, Gold found that the degree of resonance observed in the
cochlea The cochlea is the part of the inner ear involved in hearing. It is a spiral-shaped cavity in the bony labyrinth, in humans making 2.75 turns around its axis, the modiolus (cochlea), modiolus. A core component of the cochlea is the organ of Cort ...
was not in accordance with the level of
damping In physical systems, damping is the loss of energy of an oscillating system by dissipation. Damping is an influence within or upon an oscillatory system that has the effect of reducing or preventing its oscillation. Examples of damping include ...
that would be expected from the
viscosity Viscosity is a measure of a fluid's rate-dependent drag (physics), resistance to a change in shape or to movement of its neighboring portions relative to one another. For liquids, it corresponds to the informal concept of ''thickness''; for e ...
of the watery liquid that fills the inner ear. As recounted by
Freeman Dyson Freeman John Dyson (15 December 1923 – 28 February 2020) was a British-American theoretical physics, theoretical physicist and mathematician known for his works in quantum field theory, astrophysics, random matrix, random matrices, math ...
, who was one of the fellow students at Cambridge whom Gold experimented on, the procedure was "simple, elegant, and original." Gold built his experimental apparatus out of war surplus Navy electronics and headphones. This was equipment that Gold had used during his
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
assignment to the
Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...
as a
radar Radar is a system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), direction ( azimuth and elevation angles), and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It is a radiodetermination method used to detect and track ...
and radio communications specialist. In 1948 he published two papers on his results; one described the theory and the other reporting the experimental results. His theory was that the ear operates instead in the same way as does a "regenerative radio receiver" by adding energy at the same frequency it is trying to detect. (Later this became known as
otoacoustic emission An otoacoustic emission (OAE) is a sound that is generated from within the inner ear. Having been predicted by Austrian astrophysicist Thomas Gold in 1948, its existence was first demonstrated experimentally by British physicist David Kemp in 19 ...
.) Although Gold won a prize fellowship from Trinity College for his thesis on this proposed mechanism of hearing and obtained a junior lectureship at the Cavendish Laboratory, his theory was widely ignored by ear specialists and physiologists, such as future (1961)
Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; ; ) are awards administered by the Nobel Foundation and granted in accordance with the principle of "for the greatest benefit to humankind". The prizes were first awarded in 1901, marking the fifth anniversary of Alfred N ...
winner
Georg von Békésy Georg von Békésy (, ; 3 June 1899 – 13 June 1972) was a Hungarian-American biophysicist. By using strobe photography and silver flakes as a marker, he was able to observe that the basilar membrane moves like a surface wave when stimulated b ...
, who did not believe the cochlea operated under a feedback system. Later, however, researchers discovered that Gold's hypothesis had been correct. As reported in one of the science obituaries published about Gold in 2004, "Ignored for over 30 years, his research was rediscovered in the 1970s when physiologists discovered the tiny hair cells that act as amplifiers in the inner ear."


Steady-state theory

Gold began discussing problems in physics with Hoyle and Bondi again, centering on the issues over
redshift In physics, a redshift is an increase in the wavelength, and corresponding decrease in the frequency and photon energy, of electromagnetic radiation (such as light). The opposite change, a decrease in wavelength and increase in frequency and e ...
and
Hubble's law Hubble's law, also known as the Hubble–Lemaître law, is the observation in physical cosmology that galaxies are moving away from Earth at speeds proportional to their distance. In other words, the farther a galaxy is from the Earth, the faste ...
. This led the three to all start questioning the
Big Bang The Big Bang is a physical theory that describes how the universe expanded from an initial state of high density and temperature. Various cosmological models based on the Big Bang concept explain a broad range of phenomena, including th ...
theory originally proposed by
Georges Lemaître Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître ( ; ; 17 July 1894 – 20 June 1966) was a Belgian Catholic priest, theoretical physicist, and mathematician who made major contributions to cosmology and astrophysics. He was the first to argue that the ...
in 1931 and later advanced by
George Gamow George Gamow (sometimes Gammoff; born Georgiy Antonovich Gamov; ; 4 March 1904 – 19 August 1968) was a Soviet and American polymath, theoretical physicist and cosmologist. He was an early advocate and developer of Georges Lemaître's Big Ba ...
, which suggested that the
universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents. It comprises all of existence, any fundamental interaction, physical process and physical constant, and therefore all forms of matter and energy, and the structures they form, from s ...
expanded from an extremely dense and hot state and continues to expand today. As recounted in a 1978 interview with physicist and historian Spencer R. Weart, Gold believed that there was reason to think that the creation of matter was "done all the time and then none of the problems about fleeting moments arise. It can be just in a steady state with the expansion taking things apart as fast as new matter comes into being and condenses into new galaxies".. Two papers were published in 1948 discussing the "
steady-state theory In cosmology, the steady-state model or steady-state theory was an alternative to the Big Bang theory. In the steady-state model, the density of matter in the expanding universe remains unchanged due to a continuous creation of matter, thus a ...
" as an
alternative Alternative or alternate may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * Alternative (Kamen Rider), Alternative (''Kamen Rider''), a character in the Japanese TV series ''Kamen Rider Ryuki'' * Alternative comics, or independent comics are an altern ...
to the Big Bang: one by
Hermann Bondi Sir Hermann Bondi (1 November 1919 – 10 September 2005) was an Austrian-British people, British mathematician and physical cosmology, cosmologist. He is best known for developing the steady state model of the universe with Fred Hoyle and Thom ...
and Gold, the other by
Fred Hoyle 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, B2FH paper. He also held controversial stances on oth ...
. In their seminal paper, Bondi and Gold asserted that although the universe is expanding, it nevertheless does not change its look over time; it has no beginning and no end.. They proposed the perfect cosmological principle as the underpinning of their theory, which held that the
universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents. It comprises all of existence, any fundamental interaction, physical process and physical constant, and therefore all forms of matter and energy, and the structures they form, from s ...
is
homogeneous Homogeneity and heterogeneity are concepts relating to the uniformity of a substance, process or image. A homogeneous feature is uniform in composition or character (i.e., color, shape, size, weight, height, distribution, texture, language, i ...
and
isotropic In physics and geometry, isotropy () is uniformity in all orientations. Precise definitions depend on the subject area. Exceptions, or inequalities, are frequently indicated by the prefix ' or ', hence '' anisotropy''. ''Anisotropy'' is also ...
in space and time. On the large scale, they argued that there "is nothing outstanding about any place in the universe, and that those differences which do exist are only of local significance; that seen on a large scale the universe is homogeneous." However, since the universe was not characterized by a lack of evolution, distinguishing features or recognizable direction of time, they postulated that there had to be large-scale motions in the universe. They highlighted two possible types of motion: large-scale expansion and its reverse, large-scale contraction. They estimated that within the expanding universe,
hydrogen Hydrogen is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol H and atomic number 1. It is the lightest and abundance of the chemical elements, most abundant chemical element in the universe, constituting about 75% of all baryon, normal matter ...
atoms were being created out of a
vacuum A vacuum (: vacuums or vacua) is space devoid of matter. The word is derived from the Latin adjective (neuter ) meaning "vacant" or "void". An approximation to such vacuum is a region with a gaseous pressure much less than atmospheric pressur ...
at a rate of one atom per
cubic meter The cubic metre (in Commonwealth English and international spelling as used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures) or cubic meter (in American English) is the unit of volume in the International System of Units (SI). Its symbol is m ...
per 109 years. This creation of matter would keep the density of the universe constant as it expanded. Gold and Bondi also stated that the issues with time scale that had plagued other cosmological theories – such as the discrepancy between the age of the universe as calculated by Hubble and dating of radioactive decay in terrestrial rocks – were absent for the steady-state theory. It was not until the 1960s that major problems with the steady-state theory began to emerge, when observations apparently supported the idea that the universe was in fact changing:
quasar A quasar ( ) is an extremely Luminosity, luminous active galactic nucleus (AGN). It is sometimes known as a quasi-stellar object, abbreviated QSO. The emission from an AGN is powered by accretion onto a supermassive black hole with a mass rangi ...
s and
radio galaxies A radio galaxy is a galaxy with giant regions of radio emission extending well beyond its visible structure. These energetic radio lobes are powered by jets from its active galactic nucleus. They have luminosities up to 1039 watt, W at radio ...
were found only at large distances (therefore existing only in the distant past), not in closer galaxies. Whereas the Big Bang theory predicted as much, steady state predicted that such objects would be found everywhere, including close to our own galaxy, since evolution would be more evenly distributed, not observed only at great distances. In addition, proponents of the theory predicted that in addition to hydrogen atoms,
antimatter In modern physics, antimatter is defined as matter composed of the antiparticles (or "partners") of the corresponding subatomic particle, particles in "ordinary" matter, and can be thought of as matter with reversed charge and parity, or go ...
would also be produced, as with cosmic gamma ray background from the annihilation of
proton A proton is a stable subatomic particle, symbol , Hydron (chemistry), H+, or 1H+ with a positive electric charge of +1 ''e'' (elementary charge). Its mass is slightly less than the mass of a neutron and approximately times the mass of an e ...
s and
antiproton The antiproton, , (pronounced ''p-bar'') is the antiparticle of the proton. Antiprotons are stable, but they are typically short-lived, since any collision with a proton will cause both particles to be annihilated in a burst of energy. The exis ...
s and
X-ray An X-ray (also known in many languages as Röntgen radiation) is a form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than those of ultraviolet rays and longer than those of gamma rays. Roughly, X-rays have a wavelength ran ...
emitting gas from the creation of
neutron The neutron is a subatomic particle, symbol or , that has no electric charge, and a mass slightly greater than that of a proton. The Discovery of the neutron, neutron was discovered by James Chadwick in 1932, leading to the discovery of nucle ...
s. For most cosmologists, the refutation of the steady-state theory came with the discovery of the
cosmic microwave background radiation The cosmic microwave background (CMB, CMBR), or relic radiation, is microwave radiation that fills all space in the observable universe. With a standard optical telescope, the background space between stars and galaxies is almost completely dar ...
in 1965, which was predicted by the Big Bang theory..
Stephen Hawking Stephen William Hawking (8January 194214March 2018) was an English theoretical physics, theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author who was director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge. Between ...
said that the fact that microwave radiation had been found, and that it was thought to be left over from the Big Bang, was "the final nail in the coffin of the steady-state theory." Bondi conceded that the theory had been disproved, but Hoyle and Gold remained unconvinced for a number of years. Gold even supported Hoyle's modified steady-state theory; however, by 1998 he started to express some doubts about the theory, but maintained that despite its faults, the theory helped improve understanding regarding the origin of the universe.


Extra-galactic radio signals

In 1951, at a meeting of the
Royal Astronomical Society The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) is a learned society and charitable organisation, charity that encourages and promotes the study of astronomy, planetary science, solar-system science, geophysics and closely related branches of science. Its ...
, Gold proposed that the source of recent radio signals detected from space was outside the
Milky Way The Milky Way or Milky Way Galaxy is the galaxy that includes the Solar System, with the name describing the #Appearance, galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars in other arms of the galax ...
galaxy, much to the derision of radio astronomer
Martin Ryle Sir Martin Ryle (27 September 1918 – 14 October 1984) was an English radio astronomer who developed revolutionary radio telescope systems (see e.g. aperture synthesis) and used them for accurate location and imaging of weak radio sourc ...
and several mathematical cosmologists. However, a year later, a distant source was identified and Gold announced at an
International Astronomical Union The International Astronomical Union (IAU; , UAI) is an international non-governmental organization (INGO) with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreach, education, and developmen ...
meeting in Rome that his theory had been proven. Ryle would later take Gold's argument as proof of extragalactic evolution, claiming that it invalidated the steady-state theory.


Shock wave origin of magnetic storms

Gold left Cambridge in 1952 to become the chief assistant to
Astronomer Royal Astronomer Royal is a senior post in the Royal Households of the United Kingdom. There are two officers, the senior being the astronomer royal dating from 22 June 1675; the junior is the astronomer royal for Scotland dating from 1834. The Astro ...
Harold Spencer Jones Sir Harold Spencer Jones KBE FRS FRSE PRAS (29 March 1890 – 3 November 1960) was an English astronomer. He became renowned as an authority on positional astronomy and served as the tenth Astronomer Royal for 23 years. Although born "Jone ...
at the
Royal Greenwich Observatory The Royal Observatory, Greenwich (ROG; known as the Old Royal Observatory from 1957 to 1998, when the working Royal Greenwich Observatory, RGO, temporarily moved south from Greenwich to Herstmonceux) is an observatory situated on a hill in G ...
in
Herstmonceux Herstmonceux ( , , or ) is a village and civil parish in the Wealden District of East Sussex, England, which includes Herstmonceux Castle. The Herstmonceux Medieval Festival is held annually in August. History The name comes from Anglo-Sax ...
,
Sussex Sussex (Help:IPA/English, /ˈsʌsɪks/; from the Old English ''Sūþseaxe''; lit. 'South Saxons'; 'Sussex') is an area within South East England that was historically a kingdom of Sussex, kingdom and, later, a Historic counties of England, ...
,
England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
. While there, Gold attracted some controversy by suggesting that the interaction between charged particles from the Sun with the Earth's
magnetic field A magnetic field (sometimes called B-field) is a physical field that describes the magnetic influence on moving electric charges, electric currents, and magnetic materials. A moving charge in a magnetic field experiences a force perpendicular ...
in creating magnetic storms in the upper atmosphere was an example of a collisionless
shock wave In physics, a shock wave (also spelled shockwave), or shock, is a type of propagating disturbance that moves faster than the local speed of sound in the medium. Like an ordinary wave, a shock wave carries energy and can propagate through a me ...
.. The theory was widely disputed, until American scientists in 1957 discovered that Gold's theory held up to mathematical scrutiny by conducting a simulation using a
shock tube : ''For the pyrotechnic initiator, see Shock tube detonator'' A shock tube is an instrument used to replicate and direct blast waves at a sensor or model in order to simulate explosions and their effects, usually on a smaller scale. Shock tube ...
.


Astrophysics work in the USA

Gold resigned from the Royal Observatory following Spencer-Jones's retirement and moved to the United States in 1956, where he served as Professor of Astronomy (1957–1958) and Robert Wheeler Wilson Professor of Applied Astronomy (1958–1959) at
Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
. In early 1959, he accepted an appointment at
Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...
, which had offered him the opportunity to set up an
interdisciplinary Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity (e.g., a research project). It draws knowledge from several fields such as sociology, anthropology, psychology, economi ...
unit for
radiophysics Radiophysics (also modern writing radio physics) is a branch of physics focused on the theoretical and experimental study of certain kinds of radiation, its emission, propagation and interaction with matter. The term is used in the following maj ...
and space research, and take charge of the Department of Astronomy.. At the time, there was only one other faculty member in the department. Gold would serve as director of the Center for Radiophysics and Space Research until 1981, establishing Cornell as a leading hub of scientific research. During his tenure, Gold hired famed astronomers
Carl Sagan Carl Edward Sagan (; ; November 9, 1934December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, planetary scientist and science communicator. His best known scientific contribution is his research on the possibility of extraterrestrial life, including e ...
and
Frank Drake Frank Donald Drake (May 28, 1930 – September 2, 2022) was an American astrophysicist and astrobiologist. He began his career as a radio astronomer, studying the planets of the Solar System and later pulsars. Drake expanded his interests ...
, helped establish the world's largest
radio telescope A radio telescope is a specialized antenna (radio), antenna and radio receiver used to detect radio waves from astronomical radio sources in the sky. Radio telescopes are the main observing instrument used in radio astronomy, which studies the r ...
at the
Arecibo Observatory The Arecibo Observatory, also known as the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC) and formerly known as the Arecibo Ionosphere Observatory, is an observatory in Barrio Esperanza, Arecibo, Puerto Rico owned by the US National Science F ...
in Puerto Rico and the Cornell-Sydney University Astronomy Center with
Harry Messel Harry Messel, , (3 March 1922 – 8 July 2015) was a Canadian-born Australian physicist and educator. Life and work Messel was born in Canada to Ukrainian parents. He was born in Levine Siding in Manitoba, and brought up in Rivers, Manitoba. H ...
. In addition, Gold served as Assistant Vice President for Research from 1969–1971 and the John L. Wetherill Professor of Astronomy from 1971 until his retirement in 1986...


Solar nanoflares and Earth's magnetosphere

In 1959, Gold expanded on his previous prediction of a collisionless shock wave, arguing that
solar flare A solar flare is a relatively intense, localized emission of electromagnetic radiation in the Sun's atmosphere. Flares occur in active regions and are often, but not always, accompanied by coronal mass ejections, solar particle events, and ot ...
s would eject material into magnetic clouds to produce a shock front that would result in geomagnetic storms. He also coined the term "
magnetosphere In astronomy and planetary science, a magnetosphere is a region of space surrounding an astronomical object in which charged particles are affected by that object's magnetic field. It is created by a celestial body with an active interior Dynamo ...
" in his paper "Motions in the Magnetosphere of the Earth" to describe "the region above the
ionosphere The ionosphere () is the ionized part of the upper atmosphere of Earth, from about to above sea level, a region that includes the thermosphere and parts of the mesosphere and exosphere. The ionosphere is ionized by solar radiation. It plays ...
in which the magnetic field of the Earth has a dominant control over the motions of gas and fast charged particles ... hich wasknown to extend out to a distance of the order of 10 Earth radii". A 2015 paper titled "Modelling
nanoflares A nanoflare is a very small episodic heating event which happens in the corona, the external atmosphere of the Sun. The hypothesis of small impulsive heating events as a possible explanation of the coronal heating was first suggested by Thoma ...
in active regions and implications for coronal heating mechanisms," attributes the initial idea of the cause of magnetic storms above Earth to Gold: "The heating of the
solar corona In astronomy, a corona (: coronas or coronae) is the outermost layer of a star's Stellar atmosphere, atmosphere. It is a hot but relatively luminosity, dim region of Plasma (physics), plasma populated by intermittent coronal structures such as so ...
by small, impulsive heating events appears to date to a discussion by Gold and the subsequent more quantitative proposal of Levine ,3that small coronal current sheets were responsible for the heating."


Panspermia and pulsars

In 1960, Gold collaborated again with Fred Hoyle to show that magnetic energy fueled solar flares and that flares were triggered when opposite magnetic loops interact and release their stored energy. In 1960, Gold suggested a "garbage theory" for the origin of life, thus constituting a kind of "accidental
panspermia Panspermia () is the hypothesis that life exists throughout the universe, distributed by space dust, meteoroids, asteroids, comets, and planetoids, as well as by spacecraft carrying unintended contamination by microorganisms,Forward planetary c ...
". The theory proposes that life on Earth might have spread from a pile of
waste Waste are unwanted or unusable materials. Waste is any substance discarded after primary use, or is worthless, defective and of no use. A by-product, by contrast is a joint product of relatively minor Value (economics), economic value. A wast ...
products accidentally dumped on Earth long ago by
extraterrestrials Extraterrestrial life, or alien life (colloquially, aliens), is life that originates from another world rather than on Earth. No extraterrestrial life has yet been scientifically conclusively detected. Such life might range from simple forms ...
. In 1968, a Cambridge
radio astronomy Radio astronomy is a subfield of astronomy that studies Astronomical object, celestial objects using radio waves. It started in 1933, when Karl Jansky at Bell Telephone Laboratories reported radiation coming from the Milky Way. Subsequent observat ...
postgraduate student Postgraduate education, graduate education, or graduate school consists of academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications usually pursued by post-secondary students who have earned an undergraduate (bachelor' ...
Jocelyn Bell Burnell Dame Susan Jocelyn Bell Burnell (; Bell; born 15 July 1943) is a Northern Irish physicist who, as a doctoral student, discovered the first radio pulsars in 1967. This discovery later earned the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1974, but she was not ...
and her doctoral adviser
Antony Hewish Antony Hewish (11 May 1924 – 13 September 2021) was a British radio astronomer who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1974 (together with fellow radio-astronomer Martin Ryle) for his role in the discovery of pulsars. He was also awarded the ...
discovered a pulsing radio source with a
period Period may refer to: Common uses * Period (punctuation) * Era, a length or span of time *Menstruation, commonly referred to as a "period" Arts, entertainment, and media * Period (music), a concept in musical composition * Periodic sentence (o ...
of 1.337 seconds. The source – which was termed "
pulsar A pulsar (''pulsating star, on the model of quasar'') is a highly magnetized rotating neutron star that emits beams of electromagnetic radiation out of its Poles of astronomical bodies#Magnetic poles, magnetic poles. This radiation can be obse ...
" – emitted beams of
electromagnetic radiation In physics, electromagnetic radiation (EMR) is a self-propagating wave of the electromagnetic field that carries momentum and radiant energy through space. It encompasses a broad spectrum, classified by frequency or its inverse, wavelength ...
at a very short and consistent interval. Gold proposed that these objects were rapidly rotating
neutron star A neutron star is the gravitationally collapsed Stellar core, core of a massive supergiant star. It results from the supernova explosion of a stellar evolution#Massive star, massive star—combined with gravitational collapse—that compresses ...
s. Gold argued that due to their strong
magnetic Magnetism is the class of physical attributes that occur through a magnetic field, which allows objects to attract or repel each other. Because both electric currents and magnetic moments of elementary particles give rise to a magnetic field, m ...
fields and high rotational speed, pulsars would emit radiation similar to a rotating beacon. Gold's conclusion was initially not well received by the scientific community; in fact, he was refused permission to present his theory at the first international conference on pulsars. However, Gold's theory became widely accepted following the discovery of a pulsar in the
Crab Nebula The Crab Nebula (catalogue designations M1, NGC 1952, Taurus A) is a supernova remnant and pulsar wind nebula in the constellation of Taurus (constellation), Taurus. The common name comes from a drawing that somewhat resembled a crab with arm ...
using the Arecibo radio telescope, opening the door for future advancements in
solid-state physics Solid-state physics is the study of rigid matter, or solids, through methods such as solid-state chemistry, quantum mechanics, crystallography, electromagnetism, and metallurgy. It is the largest branch of condensed matter physics. Solid-state phy ...
and astronomy. Anthony Tucker of ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'' remarked that Gold's discovery paved the way for
Stephen Hawking Stephen William Hawking (8January 194214March 2018) was an English theoretical physics, theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author who was director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge. Between ...
's groundbreaking research into
black hole A black hole is a massive, compact astronomical object so dense that its gravity prevents anything from escaping, even light. Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will form a black hole. Th ...
s.


Moon dust and NASA

From the 1950s, Gold served as a consultant to
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...
and held positions on several national space committees, including the
President's Science Advisory Committee The President's Science Advisory Committee (PSAC) was created on November 21, 1957, by President of the United States Dwight D. Eisenhower, as a direct response to the Soviet launching of the Sputnik 1 and Sputnik 2 satellites. PSAC was an upgra ...
, as the
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
tried to develop its space program. At the time, scientists were engaged in a heated debate over the physical properties of the Moon's surface. In 1955, he predicted that the Moon was covered by a layer of fine rock powder stemming from "the ceaseless bombardment of its surface by Solar System debris". This led to the dust being jokingly referred to as "Gold dust" or "Gold's dust".. Gold initially suggested that astronauts would sink into the dust, but upon later analysis of impact craters and electrostatic fields, he determined that the astronauts' boots would sink only three centimeters into the Moon's surface. In any case, NASA sent unmanned
Surveyors Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. These points are usually on the ...
to analyze the conditions on the surface of the Moon. Gold was ridiculed by fellow scientists, not only for his hypothesis, but for the approach he took in communicating NASA's concerns to the American public; in particular, some experts were infuriated with his usage of the term "Moon dust" in reference to lunar
regolith Regolith () is a blanket of unconsolidated, loose, heterogeneous superficial deposits covering solid rock. It includes dust, broken rocks, and other related materials and is present on Earth, the Moon, Mars, some asteroids, and other terrestria ...
.. When the
Apollo 11 Apollo 11 was a spaceflight conducted from July 16 to 24, 1969, by the United States and launched by NASA. It marked the first time that humans Moon landing, landed on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and Lunar Module pilot Buzz Aldrin l ...
crew landed on the Moon in 1969 and brought back the first samples of
lunar rock Moon rock or lunar rock is rock originating from Earth's Moon. This includes lunar material collected during the course of human exploration of the Moon, and rock that has been ejected naturally from the Moon's surface and landed on Earth a ...
s, researchers found that lunar soil was in fact powdery. Gold said the findings were consistent with his hypothesis, noting that "in one area as they walked along, they sank in between five and eight inches". However, Gold received little credit for his correct prediction, and was even criticized for his original prediction of a deep layer of lunar dust. Gold had also contributed to the
Apollo program The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was the United States human spaceflight program led by NASA, which Moon landing, landed the first humans on the Moon in 1969. Apollo followed Project Mercury that put the first Americans in sp ...
by designing the Apollo Lunar Surface Closeup Camera (ALSCC) (a kind of
stereo camera A stereo camera is a type of camera with two or more lenses with a separate image sensor or film frame for each lens. This allows the camera to simulate human binocular vision, and therefore gives it the ability to capture three-dimensional ...
) used on the Apollo 11, 12, and 14 missions. In the 1970s and 1980s, Gold was a vocal critic of NASA's
Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable launch system, reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. ...
program, deriding claims that the agency could fly 50 missions a year or that it could have low budget costs. NASA officials warned Gold that if he testified his concerns before Congress, his research proposals would lose their support from NASA. Gold ignored the warning and testified before a Congressional committee headed by Senator
Walter Mondale Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale (January 5, 1928April 19, 2021) was the 42nd vice president of the United States serving from 1977 to 1981 under President Jimmy Carter. He previously served as a U.S. senator from Minnesota from 1964 to 1976. ...
. In a letter to NASA administrator
James C. Fletcher James Chipman Fletcher (June 5, 1919 – December 22, 1991) served as the 4th and 7th Administrator of NASA, first from April 27, 1971, to May 1, 1977, under Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, and again from May 12, 1986, to ...
,
George Low George Michael Low (born Georg Michael Löw; June 10, 1926 – July 17, 1984) was an administrator at NASA and the 14th president of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Low was one of the senior NASA officials who made decisions as manager ...
wrote that "Gold should realize that being funded by the Government and NASA is a privilege, and that it would make little sense for us to fund him as long as his views are what they are now".. Gold recalled the aftermath of his testimony in a 1983 interview with astronomy historian David H. DeVorkin:
I had a very hard time with NASA, year after year. I got some more money, but eventually it fizzled out, after three years or so after this event. My applications, which previously each year had always gone through very smoothly, were turned down. I would then have to go to Washington, discuss it with them. and I then would get a certain fraction of it resurrected. For several years running this happened, and then eventually it fizzled permanently, and I've not tried to get any money out of NASA since.
...
I was certainly regarded as persona non grata with NASA after that. I had a very hard time. Shortly after that Noel Hinners became the Space Science administrator, and he used to joke about it and say, "Oh. Tommy's got to come to his annual pilgrimage to Washington," and regarded it as very funny, but then he'd always give me some money. But always clearly as a persona non grata.


Contrarian views in geology and biology


Abiogenic origins of petroleum

Thomas Gold first became interested in the origins of
petroleum Petroleum, also known as crude oil or simply oil, is a naturally occurring, yellowish-black liquid chemical mixture found in geological formations, consisting mainly of hydrocarbons. The term ''petroleum'' refers both to naturally occurring un ...
in the 1950s, postulating a theory on the abiogenic formation of fossil fuels. Gold engaged in thorough discussion on the matter with
Fred Hoyle 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, B2FH paper. He also held controversial stances on oth ...
, who even included a chapter on "Gold's Pore Theory" in his 1955 book ''Frontiers in Astronomy''. While Russian scientists had long been at work explicating possible abiogenic origins of petroleum, the
Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
blocked knowledge of their publications until the 1990s. Thus, Thomas Gold was credited with the idea in the United States when current events prompted him to submit an opinion piece to the ''
Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...
'' in June 1977 titled, "Rethinking the origins of oil and gas." Concern about gasoline shortages that began in 1973 were still troubling the economy. A striking discovery in the deep-sea just four months earlier (February 1977) was another impetus: Exploration and photography of a deep-sea hydrothermal vent showed a dense amount of life living on chemical energy. Stationary organisms depending on vent outflows included albino clams and tube worms larger than ever seen in surface marine ecosystems. Most astonishing was that such ecosystems were based on microbial life living entirely on
chemosynthetic In biochemistry, chemosynthesis is the biological conversion of one or more carbon-containing molecules (usually carbon dioxide or methane) and nutrients into organic matter using the oxidation of inorganic compounds (e.g., hydrogen gas, hydrog ...
rather than photosynthetic ways of capturing energy and building living cells. Science communicator
Paul Davies Paul Charles William Davies (born 22 April 1946) is an English physicist, writer and broadcaster, a professor in Arizona State University and director of BEYOND: Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science. He is affiliated with the Institute ...
explained Gold's theory in this way: "Conventional wisdom has it that oil and coal are remnants of ancient surface life that became buried and subjected to extremes of temperature and pressure. Gold maintains that these deposits are not fossil fuels in the normal sense, but the products of primordial hydrocarbons dating from the time of the Earth's formation. He claims that over the aeons the volatile gases migrate towards the surface through cracks in the crust, and either leak into the atmosphere as methane, become trapped in sub-surface gas fields, or are robbed of their hydrogen to become oil, tar or carbonaceous material like coal." As to the ubiquity of abiotic hydrocarbons in the solar system, a 1999 profile of Gold in the ''
Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...
'' quoted him as saying, "it always seemed absurd to me to see petroleum hydrocarbons on other planets, where there was obviously never any vegetation, even as we insist that on Earth they must be biological in origin."


Earthquakes from rising methane

Having established the theoretical foundations of his abiogenic petroleum hypothesis, Gold began in-depth thinking and research on the kinds of empirical evidence that might land in its favor. First was collaborating with a former graduate student of his at
Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...
:
Steven Soter Steven Soter is an astrophysicist currently holding the positions of scientist-in-residence for New York University's Environmental Studies Program and of Research Associate for the Department of Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural Hi ...
. Soter had received his PhD in astronomy in 1971 and had recently concluded another faculty collaboration at Cornell: working with
Carl Sagan Carl Edward Sagan (; ; November 9, 1934December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, planetary scientist and science communicator. His best known scientific contribution is his research on the possibility of extraterrestrial life, including e ...
in the writing of the television series, '' Cosmos: A Personal Voyage''. Gold and Soter teamed up to investigate the knowns and unknowns about
earthquake An earthquakealso called a quake, tremor, or tembloris the shaking of the Earth's surface resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those so weak they ...
s from the standpoint of plausible causation by or regular co-occurrence with sudden escape of large volumes of
methane Methane ( , ) is a chemical compound with the chemical formula (one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms). It is a group-14 hydride, the simplest alkane, and the main constituent of natural gas. The abundance of methane on Earth makes ...
gas. The result was a series of papers, including two with "earthquakes" in the title: "North Sea-quakes" (''New Scientist'' 1979) and "Fluid Ascent through the Solid Lithosphere and its Relation to Earthquakes" (''Pure and Applied Geophysics'' 1985). Their 1980 article in ''Scientific American'' was titled "The Deep-Earth-Gas Hypothesis" and the explanatory value of the idea was presented as, providing "a unified basis for explaining a number of otherwise rather puzzling phenomena that either give warning of earthquakes or accompany them." Even so, they cautioned, "The sampling of such gases is just beginning, and the data will not yet support confident conclusions." The puzzling phenomena associated with earthquakes include "flames that shoot from the ground, earthquake lights, fierce bubbling in bodies of water, sulfurous air and the strange behavior of animals, loud explosive and hissing noises, and visible waves rolling slowly along alluvial ground." They constructed a map of the world depicting major oil-producing regions and areas with historical seismic activity. Several oil-rich regions, such as Alaska, Texas, the Caribbean, Mexico, Venezuela, the Persian Gulf, the Urals, Siberia, and Southeast Asia, were shown to be lying on major earthquake belts. Gold and Soter suggested that these belts may explain the upward migration of gases originating at depth. "The fact is that oil and gas fields show a distinct association with such earthquake-prone regions. The association suggests to us that the deep faults may provide a conduit for the continuous input of nonbiological methane streaming up from below. Moreover, the upward migration of methane and other gases in fault zones may contribute to the triggering of earthquakes." He also pointed to the abundance of
helium Helium (from ) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol He and atomic number 2. It is a colorless, odorless, non-toxic, inert gas, inert, monatomic gas and the first in the noble gas group in the periodic table. Its boiling point is ...
in oil and gas reserves as evidence for "a deep source of the hydrocarbons".. Moreover, a few
oil reserve Oil and gas reserves denote ''discovered'' quantities of petroleum, crude oil and natural gas from known fields that can be profitably produced/recovered from an approved development. Oil and gas reserves tied to approved operational plans file ...
s thought to have been exhausted were suddenly generating vast amounts of crude oil. From this, Gold proposed that the Earth may possess a virtually endless supply – suggesting as much as "at least 500 million years' worth of gas" – of fossil fuels.


The helium anomaly

In later publications, Gold emphasized that the immense amounts of
helium Helium (from ) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol He and atomic number 2. It is a colorless, odorless, non-toxic, inert gas, inert, monatomic gas and the first in the noble gas group in the periodic table. Its boiling point is ...
gas that surges upward during commercial petroleum production at some sites is proof in itself that substantial lightweight gases have indeed persisted at depth since the amalgamation of cosmic debris into planet Earth during the birth of this solar system. In his 1998 book, Gold closed his fourth chapter, "Evidence for Deep-Earth Gas," with a section titled "The Association of Helium with Hydrocarbons."


A test: Drilling deep into granite

Gold began testing his abiogenic petroleum theory in 1986. With the backing of a group of investors,
Vattenfall Vattenfall is a Swedish multinational corporation, multinational electrical power industry, power company owned by the List of government enterprises of Sweden, Swedish state. Beyond Sweden, the company generates power in Denmark, Finland, Germa ...
and the
Gas Research Institute The Gas Technology Institute (GTI) is an American non-profit research and development organization which develops, demonstrates, and licenses new energy technologies for private and public clients, with a particular focus on the natural gas industr ...
, drilling of a deep
borehole A borehole is a narrow shaft bored in the ground, either vertically or horizontally. A borehole may be constructed for many different purposes, including the extraction of water ( drilled water well and tube well), other liquids (such as petr ...
– named Gravberg-1 – commenced into the
bedrock In geology, bedrock is solid rock that lies under loose material ( regolith) within the crust of Earth or another terrestrial planet. Definition Bedrock is the solid rock that underlies looser surface material. An exposed portion of bed ...
near
Lake Siljan Siljan, in Dalarna in central Sweden, is Sweden's seventh largest lake. The cumulative area of Siljan and the adjacent, smaller lakes Orsasjön and Insjön is . Siljan reaches a maximum depth of , and its surface is situated above sea level. Th ...
in
Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...
. This was the site of a large
meteor crater Meteor Crater, or Barringer Crater, is an impact crater about east of Flagstaff and west of Winslow in the desert of northern Arizona, United States. The site had several earlier names, and fragments of the meteorite are officially called ...
, which would have "opened channels deep enough for the methane to migrate upward" and formed deposits in
caprock Caprock or cap rock is a hard, resistant, and impermeable layer of rock that overlies and protects a reservoir of softer organic material, similar to the crust on a pie where the crust (caprock) prevents leakage of the soft filling (softer materia ...
just a few miles beneath the surface. He estimated that the
fractures Fracture is the appearance of a crack or complete separation of an object or material into two or more pieces under the action of stress (mechanics), stress. The fracture of a solid usually occurs due to the development of certain displacemen ...
near Lake Siljan reached down nearly 40 kilometers into the earth.. In 1987, approximately of drilling lubricant disappeared nearly into the ground, leading Gold to believe that the lubricant had fallen into a methane reservoir. Soon after, the team brought up nearly 100 liters of black oily sludge to the surface. Gold claimed that the sludge contained both oil and remnants of
archaebacteria Archaea ( ) is a domain of organisms. Traditionally, Archaea only included its prokaryotic members, but this has since been found to be paraphyletic, as eukaryotes are known to have evolved from archaea. Even though the domain Archaea cladis ...
. He argued that "it suggests there is an enormous sphere of life, of biology, at deeper levels in the ground than we have had any knowledge of previously" and that this evidence would "destroy the orthodox argument that since oil contains biological molecules, oil reserves must have derived from biological material". The announcement of Gold's findings was met with mixed reactions, ranging from "furious incredulity" to "deep skepticism". Geochemist Geoffrey P. Glasby speculated that the sludge could have been formed from the
Fischer–Tropsch process The Fischer–Tropsch process (FT) is a collection of chemical reactions that converts a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, known as syngas, into liquid hydrocarbons. These reactions occur in the presence of metal catalysts, typically at te ...
, a
catalyzed Catalysis () is the increase in rate of a chemical reaction due to an added substance known as a catalyst (). Catalysts are not consumed by the reaction and remain unchanged after it. If the reaction is rapid and the catalyst recycles quick ...
chemical reaction A chemical reaction is a process that leads to the chemistry, chemical transformation of one set of chemical substances to another. When chemical reactions occur, the atoms are rearranged and the reaction is accompanied by an Gibbs free energy, ...
in which
synthesis gas Syngas, or synthesis gas, is a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide in various ratios. The gas often contains some carbon dioxide and methane. It is principally used for producing ammonia or methanol. Syngas is combustible and can be used as ...
, a mixture of
carbon monoxide Carbon monoxide (chemical formula CO) is a poisonous, flammable gas that is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and slightly less dense than air. Carbon monoxide consists of one carbon atom and one oxygen atom connected by a triple bond. It is the si ...
and
hydrogen Hydrogen is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol H and atomic number 1. It is the lightest and abundance of the chemical elements, most abundant chemical element in the universe, constituting about 75% of all baryon, normal matter ...
, is converted into liquid
hydrocarbon In organic chemistry, a hydrocarbon is an organic compound consisting entirely of hydrogen and carbon. Hydrocarbons are examples of group 14 hydrides. Hydrocarbons are generally colourless and Hydrophobe, hydrophobic; their odor is usually fain ...
s. Critics also dismissed Gold's archaebacteria finding, stating that "since micro-organisms cannot survive at such depth, the bacteria prove that the well has been contaminated from the surface". Geochemist Paul Philp analyzed the sludge and concluded that he could not differentiate between the samples of sludge and
oil seep A petroleum seep is a place where natural liquid or gaseous hydrocarbons escape to the Earth's atmosphere and surface, normally under low pressure or flow. Seeps generally occur above either natural terrestrial or underwater petroleum accumul ...
found in sedimentary
shale Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of Clay mineral, clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g., Kaolinite, kaolin, aluminium, Al2Silicon, Si2Oxygen, O5(hydroxide, OH)4) and tiny f ...
rocks near the surface. He reasoned that oil had migrated from the shale down to the granite deep in the ground.. Gold disputed Philp's finding, believing that the oil and gas could have just as easily migrated up to the surface: "They would have it that the oil and gas we found down there was from the five feet of sediments on the top – had seeped all the way down six kilometres down into the granite. I mean, such complete absurdity: you can imagine sitting there with five feet of soil and six kilometres underneath of dense granitic rock, and that methane produced up there has crawled all the way down in preference to water. Absolute nonsense." In light of the controversy surrounding the sludge and possible drill contamination, Gold abandoned the project at Gravberg-1, calling it a "complete fiasco", and redesigned the experiment by replacing his oil-based drilling lubricant with a water-based one. The drill hit oil in the spring of 1989, but only collected about . Gold stated, "It was not coming up at a rate at which you could sell it, but it showed there was oil down there." The drill then ran into technical problems and was stopped at a depth of 6.8 kilometers. The hole was closed, but a second hole was opened for drilling closer to the "center of the impact ring where there was even less
sedimentary rock Sedimentary rocks are types of rock (geology), rock formed by the cementation (geology), cementation of sediments—i.e. particles made of minerals (geological detritus) or organic matter (biological detritus)—that have been accumulated or de ...
". By October 1991, the drill hit oil at a depth of 3.8 kilometers, but many skeptics remained unconvinced of the site's prospects. Geologist John R. Castaño concluded that there was insufficient evidence of the mantle as the hydrocarbon source and that it was unlikely that the Siljan site could be used as a commercial gas field. In 2019, a study of gases and secondary carbonate minerals revealed that long-term microbial methanogenesis has occurred in situ deep within the fracture system of the crater (for at least 80 million years) and with an obvious spatial link to seep oils of surficial sedimentary origin, at odds with Gold's theories of deep abiotic gas migration. Gold's later views on the drilling results can be found in chapter 6, "The Siljan Experiment," of his 1998 book. Another section of the book titled "The Upwelling Theory of Coal Formation" presents another argument in favor of the abiogenic model that he had not presented in an earlier paper. Similarly, he also presents arguments pertaining to the origin of diamonds and that microbial processes are the cause of mineral concentrations at depth.


Dispute nearly forgotten

In 1996 a paper published in the journal ''Social Studies of Science'' was titled, "Which Came First, the Fossil or the Fuel?" The author concluded:
Beginning in the late 1970s, Gold revived the 'abiogenic' theory, which holds that hydrocarbons are primordial, not remnants of decayed biology. By contesting the central tenet of petroleum geology, Gold precipitated a bitter scientific controversy. Both sides employed novel rhetorical strategies in order to impute interests, to contest expertise, to recruit allies from peripheral disciplines, and to claim the mantle of scientific method; and both managed to construct plausible interpretations of the available data.
The author reported that even the Siljan drilling results had not been sufficient to fully resolve the long-standing dispute about origins, although Gold's hypothesis is favored by only a very slim minority. As of 2024, "
fossil fuel A fossil fuel is a flammable carbon compound- or hydrocarbon-containing material formed naturally in the Earth's crust from the buried remains of prehistoric organisms (animals, plants or microplanktons), a process that occurs within geolog ...
" is still the prevailing term widely in use in reference to petroleum resources, both within academia and without. Such terminology includes 21st century communications about the causes of
anthropogenic climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes ...
and proffered solutions to the crisis, such as the 2023
IPCC The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. Its job is to "provide governments at all levels with scientific information that they can use to develop climate policies". The World M ...
report, "Climate Change 2023 Synthesis Report: Summary for Policymakers." Overall, within the academic disciplines of geobiology and petroleum geology, criticism of Gold's abiogenic theory has been severe — but not entire. The dispute is more set aside and forgotten than resolved. As to whether Gold's framing of distinct chemosynthetic microbes are active and ubiquitous at depth, the established authorities have moved in his direction. (See next section.)


"Deep Hot Biosphere" theory

In a 1992 paper, "The Deep, Hot Biosphere", Gold first suggested that microbial life is widespread in the porosity of the crust of the Earth, down to depths of several kilometers, where rising temperatures finally set a limit. The subsurface life obtains its energy not from photosynthesis but from chemical sources in fluids migrating upwards through the crust. The mass of the
deep biosphere The deep biosphere is the part of the biosphere that resides below the first few meters of the ocean's surface. It extends below the continental surface and below the sea surface, at temperatures that may reach beyond which is comparable to s ...
may be comparable to that of the surface biosphere. Subsurface life may be widespread on other bodies in the solar system and throughout the universe, even on worlds unaccompanied by other stars. A 1993 article by journalist
William Broad William J. Broad (born March 7, 1951) is an American science journalist, author and a Senior Writer at ''The New York Times''. Early life and education Broad was born on March 7, 1951. He earned a master's degree from the University of Wisc ...
, published in ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' and title
"Strange New Microbes Hint at a Vast Subterranean World,"
carried Gold's thesis to public attention. The article began, "New forms of microbial life are being discovered in such abundance deep inside the Earth that some scientists are beginning to suspect that the planet has a hidden biosphere extending miles down whose total mass may rival or exceed that of all surface life. If a deep biosphere does exist, scientists say, its discovery will rewrite textbooks while shedding new light on the mystery of life's origins. Even skeptics say the thesis is intriguing enough to warrant new studies of the subterranean realm." The 1993 article also features how Gold's thesis expands possibilities for
astrobiology Astrobiology (also xenology or exobiology) is a scientific field within the List of life sciences, life and environmental sciences that studies the abiogenesis, origins, Protocell, early evolution, distribution, and future of life in the univ ...
research: "Dr. Thomas Gold, an astrophysicist at Cornell University known for bold theorizing, has speculated that subterranean life may dot the cosmos, secluded beneath the surfaces of planets and moons and energized by geological processes, with no need for the warming radiation of nearby stars. He wrote in ''The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences'' last year that the solar system might harbor at least 10 deep biospheres. 'Such life may be widely disseminated in the universe,' he said, 'since planetary type bodies with similar subsurface conditions may be common as solitary objects in space, as well as in other solar-type systems.'" Gold also published a book of the same title, ''The Deep Hot Biosphere'', in 1999, which expanded on the arguments in his 1992 paper and included speculations on the
origin of life Abiogenesis is the natural process by which life arises from abiotic component, non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds. The prevailing scientific hypothesis is that the transition from non-living to organism, living entities on ...
and on
horizontal gene transfer Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) or lateral gene transfer (LGT) is the movement of genetic material between organisms other than by the ("vertical") transmission of DNA from parent to offspring (reproduction). HGT is an important factor in the e ...
. According to Gold, bacteria feeding on the oil accounts for the presence of biological debris in hydrocarbon fuels, obviating the need to resort to a
biogenic A biogenic substance is a product made by or of life forms. While the term originally was specific to metabolite compounds that had toxic effects on other organisms, it has developed to encompass any constituents, secretions, and metabolites of p ...
theory for the origin of the latter. The flows of underground
hydrocarbon In organic chemistry, a hydrocarbon is an organic compound consisting entirely of hydrogen and carbon. Hydrocarbons are examples of group 14 hydrides. Hydrocarbons are generally colourless and Hydrophobe, hydrophobic; their odor is usually fain ...
s may also explain oddities in the concentration of other mineral deposits. In short, Gold said about the origin of natural hydrocarbons (petroleum and natural gas): ''Hydrocarbons are not biology reworked by geology (as the traditional view would hold), but rather geology reworked by biology''.
Freeman Dyson Freeman John Dyson (15 December 1923 – 28 February 2020) was a British-American theoretical physics, theoretical physicist and mathematician known for his works in quantum field theory, astrophysics, random matrix, random matrices, math ...
wrote the foreword to Gold's 1999 book, where he concluded, "Gold's theories are always original, always important, usually controversial — and usually right. It is my belief, based on fifty years of observation of Gold as a friend and colleague, that the deep hot biosphere is all of the above: original, important, controversial — and right." (Dyson also delivered a eulogy at Gold's memorial service, a segment of which pertaining to the deep hot biosphere theory is posted on youtube.) Following Gold's death, scientific discoveries amplified and also shifted understanding of the deep hot biosphere into what is now generally called
deep biosphere The deep biosphere is the part of the biosphere that resides below the first few meters of the ocean's surface. It extends below the continental surface and below the sea surface, at temperatures that may reach beyond which is comparable to s ...
. However, it is only at great depth where naturally occurring
geochemical processes Geochemistry is the science that uses the tools and principles of chemistry to explain the mechanisms behind major geological systems such as the Earth's crust and its oceans. The realm of geochemistry extends beyond the Earth, encompassing the e ...
induced by intense heat and pressure produce elemental
hydrogen Hydrogen is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol H and atomic number 1. It is the lightest and abundance of the chemical elements, most abundant chemical element in the universe, constituting about 75% of all baryon, normal matter ...
and
carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalent bond, covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in a gas state at room temperature and at norma ...
upon which novel
metabolism Metabolism (, from ''metabolē'', "change") is the set of life-sustaining chemical reactions in organisms. The three main functions of metabolism are: the conversion of the energy in food to energy available to run cellular processes; the co ...
s of life (especially among the primitive
Archaea Archaea ( ) is a Domain (biology), domain of organisms. Traditionally, Archaea only included its Prokaryote, prokaryotic members, but this has since been found to be paraphyletic, as eukaryotes are known to have evolved from archaea. Even thou ...
) could have evolved. A retrospective paper published in the same journal as Gold's 1992 paper featured the metabolic and genetic discoveries of life forms at depth that Gold's paper inspired. Titled "The Deep, Hot Biosphere: Twenty-five years of retrospection," the authors conclude:
The pioneering ideas proposed by Thomas Gold inspired a generation of researchers in the field of
geobiology Geobiology is a field of scientific research that explores the interactions between the physical Earth and the biosphere. It is a relatively young field, and its borders are fluid. There is considerable overlap with the fields of ecology, evoluti ...
to dive deeper into the possibilities of subsurface life, spawning hundreds of relevant publications.... Deep hydrocarbon deposits on
Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...
,
Titan Titan most often refers to: * Titan (moon), the largest moon of Saturn * Titans, a race of deities in Greek mythology Titan or Titans may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Fictional entities Fictional locations * Titan in fiction, fictiona ...
, and worlds beyond could play host to life similar to that in Earth’s own crust. The techniques used to better study and understand deep, hot biospheres on Earth could then be applied to robotically probe targets in deep space as we move into the next century of scientific discovery. Technology is advancing at a rate wherein we may find that Gold’s deep, hot biosphere is not only true, but common across the universe.
A term Gold coined in his 1999 book carries forward, too, and is a reminder of the worldview shift he advocated. The term is " surface chauvinism". Gold wrote, "In retrospect, it is not hard to understand why the scientific community has typically sought only ''surface'' life in the heavens. Scientists have been hindered by a sort of 'surface chauvinism.'" In 2024
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...
launched the first spacecraft,
Europa Clipper Europa Clipper (previously known as Europa Multiple Flyby Mission) is a space probe developed by NASA to study Europa (moon), Europa, a Galilean moon of Jupiter. It was launched on October 14, 2024. The spacecraft used a gravity assist from Mar ...
, to study and sample whether one of the moons of an outer planet that Gold had pointed to as a prospect for deep life (
Europa Europa may refer to: Places * Europa (Roman province), a province within the Diocese of Thrace * Europa (Seville Metro), Seville, Spain; a station on the Seville Metro * Europa City, Paris, France; a planned development * Europa Cliffs, Alexan ...
, a moon of
Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a Jupiter mass, mass more than 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined a ...
) might indeed harbor the physical and chemical conditions essential for carbon-based life.


Academic legacy

Throughout his academic career, Gold received a number of honors and distinctions. He was a Fellow of the
Royal Astronomical Society The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) is a learned society and charitable organisation, charity that encourages and promotes the study of astronomy, planetary science, solar-system science, geophysics and closely related branches of science. Its ...
(1948), the
Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
(1964), the
American Geophysical Union The American Geophysical Union (AGU) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization of Earth, Atmospheric science, atmospheric, Oceanography, ocean, Hydrology, hydrologic, Astronomy, space, and Planetary science, planetary scientists and enthusiasts that ...
(1962), the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...
(1974), and the
American Astronautical Society Formed in 1954, the American Astronautical Society (AAS) is an independent scientific and technical group in the United States dedicated to the advancement of space science and space exploration. AAS supports NASA The National Aeronau ...
, a member of the
American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...
(1972), the
United States National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...
(1974) and the
International Academy of Astronautics The International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) is a Paris-based non-government association for the field of astronautics. It was founded in Stockholm, Sweden) on August 16, 1960, by Dr. Theodore von Kármán. It was recognised by the United Nation ...
, and an Honorary Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge (1986). In addition, he served as President of the New York Astronomical Society from 1981 to 1986. Gold won the
John Frederick Lewis Award The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...
from the American Philosophical Society in 1972 for his paper "The Nature of the Lunar Surface: Recent Evidence" and the
Humboldt Prize The Humboldt Research Award (), also known informally as the Humboldt Prize, is an award given by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany to internationally renowned scientists and scholars who work outside of Germany in recognition of ...
from the
Alexander von Humboldt Foundation The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation () is a foundation that promotes international academic cooperation between scientists and scholars from Germany and abroad. Established by the government of the Federal Republic of Germany, it is funded by t ...
in 1979.. In 1985, Gold won the prestigious
Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society The Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society is the highest award given by the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS). The RAS Council have "complete freedom as to the grounds on which it is awarded" and it can be awarded for any reason. Past awar ...
, an award whose recipients include Fred Hoyle, Hermann Bondi, Martin Ryle,
Edwin Hubble Edwin Powell Hubble (November 20, 1889 – September 28, 1953) was an American astronomer. He played a crucial role in establishing the fields of extragalactic astronomy and observational cosmology. Hubble proved that many objects previously ...
,
James Van Allen James Alfred Van Allen (September 7, 1914August 9, 2006) was an American space physicist at the University of Iowa. He was instrumental in establishing the field of magnetospheric research in space. The Van Allen radiation belts were named af ...
,
Fritz Zwicky Fritz Zwicky (; ; February 14, 1898 – February 8, 1974) was a Swiss astronomer. He worked most of his life at the California Institute of Technology in the United States of America, where he made many important contributions in theoretical an ...
,
Hannes Alfvén Hannes Olof Gösta Alfvén (; 30 May 1908 – 2 April 1995) was a Swedish electrical engineer, plasma physicist and winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). He described the class of MHD waves now ...
and
Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...
. Gold did not earn a
doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...
, but received an honorary
Doctor of Science A Doctor of Science (; most commonly abbreviated DSc or ScD) is a science doctorate awarded in a number of countries throughout the world. Africa Algeria and Morocco In Algeria, Morocco, Libya and Tunisia, all universities accredited by the s ...
degree from Cambridge University in 1969.. Following his death in 2004, obituaries laying out the breadth of his scientific inquiries appeared in a number of scientific journals. In the journal ''
Nature Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the Ecosphere (planetary), ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the Scientific law, laws, elements and phenomenon, phenomena of the physic ...
'',
Hermann Bondi Sir Hermann Bondi (1 November 1919 – 10 September 2005) was an Austrian-British people, British mathematician and physical cosmology, cosmologist. He is best known for developing the steady state model of the universe with Fred Hoyle and Thom ...
wrote "Tommy Gold will long be remembered as a singular scientist who stepped into any field where he thought an option was being overlooked. He was also unusual in working mainly theoretically, but using little mathematics, relying instead on his profound intuitive understanding of physics." The obituary in ''
Physics Today ''Physics Today'' is the membership magazine of the American Institute of Physics. First published in May 1948, it is issued on a monthly schedule, and is provided to the members of ten physics societies, including the American Physical Society. ...
'' included a listing of topics he delved into: "the alignment of galactic dust, the instability of Earth’s axis of rotation, the dusty lunar surface, the Sun's cosmic rays, and plasmas and magnetic fields in the solar system ... the origin of solar flares, the nature of time, molecules and masers in the interstellar medium, rotating neutron stars and the nature of pulsars, terrestrial sources of hydrocarbons, and the deep Earth biosphere." Gold's boldness in his approach is another aspect of his legacy. The obituary in the ''
Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society ''Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society'' (''BAAS''; ''Bull. Am. Astron. Soc.'') is the journal of record for the American Astronomical Society established in 1969. It publishes meetings of the society, obituaries of its members, and sc ...
'' called attention to his being "regarded by some as a scientific maverick who delighted in controversy. In reality, he was an iconoclast whose strength was in penetrating analysis of the assumptions on which some of our most important theories are based.... Tommy's paradigm-changing ideas in astronomy and planetary science, while original and bold, were also highly controversial. With his radical work on the origin of natural gas and petroleum, the controversy is likely to continue.... He will be remembered as one of the most interesting, dynamic and influential scientists of his generation." The obituary in ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'' stated that Gold would "dive into new territory to open up problems unseen by others — in biophysics, astrophysics, space engineering, or geophysics. Controversy followed him everywhere. Possessing profound scientific intuition and open-minded rigour, he usually ended up challenging the cherished assumptions of others and, to the discomfiture of the scientific establishment, often found them wanting. His stature and influence were international."


Personal life

Gold married his first wife, Merle Eleanor Tuberg, an American astrophysicist who had worked with
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (; 19 October 1910 – 21 August 1995) was an Indian Americans, Indian-American theoretical physicist who made significant contributions to the scientific knowledge about the structure of stars, stellar evolution and ...
, in Cambridge in 1947. He had three daughters with her – Linda, Lucy, and Tanya. After divorcing her, Gold married Carvel Lee Beyer in 1972. With her, he had a daughter Lauren. Thomas Gold died at the age of 84 from complications due to
heart disease Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is any disease involving the heart or blood vessels. CVDs constitute a class of diseases that includes: coronary artery diseases (e.g. angina pectoris, angina, myocardial infarction, heart attack), heart failure, ...
, at Cayuga Medical Center in
Ithaca, New York Ithaca () is a city in and the county seat of Tompkins County, New York, United States. Situated on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake in the Finger Lakes region of New York (state), New York, Ithaca is the largest community in the Ithaca metrop ...
. He was buried in the Pleasant Grove Cemetery in Ithaca.. He was survived by his wife, four daughters, and six grandchildren.


Selected publications

* . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * .


See also

*
Abiogenic petroleum origin The abiogenic petroleum origin hypothesis proposes that most of earth's petroleum and natural gas deposits were formed inorganically, commonly known as abiotic oil. Scientific evidence overwhelmingly supports a biogenic origin for most of the world ...
* Gold universe *
Astronomy 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 includ ...
*
Astrophysics Astrophysics is a science that employs the methods and principles of physics and chemistry in the study of astronomical objects and phenomena. As one of the founders of the discipline, James Keeler, said, astrophysics "seeks to ascertain the ...
*
Petroleum Petroleum, also known as crude oil or simply oil, is a naturally occurring, yellowish-black liquid chemical mixture found in geological formations, consisting mainly of hydrocarbons. The term ''petroleum'' refers both to naturally occurring un ...
*
Theoretical astrophysics Astrophysics is a science that employs the methods and principles of physics and chemistry in the study of astronomical objects and phenomena. As one of the founders of the discipline, James Keeler, said, astrophysics "seeks to ascertain the ...


Notes


References

* . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * * . * . * . *


External links


The Origin of Methane (and Oil) in the Crust of the Earth (Thomas Gold)
U.S.G.S. Professional Paper 1570, The Future of Energy Gases, 1993 * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * .
Thomas Gold Publications – HarvardNational Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gold, Thomas 1920 births 2004 deaths Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge American aerospace engineers 20th-century American astronomers American biophysicists American geophysicists American people of Austrian-Jewish descent 20th-century Austrian astronomers Austrian biophysicists Cornell University faculty American cosmologists Fellows of the Royal Astronomical Society Foreign fellows of the Royal Astronomical Society Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge Harvard University faculty Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Panspermia Scientists from Vienna Recipients of the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society Fellows of the American Geophysical Union 20th-century American engineers Alumni of Lyceum Alpinum Zuoz Members of the American Philosophical Society