Politics is one of Geoffrey Burbidge's favorite pejoratives. The university's contract with the government to develop a scientific instrument? "A piece of politics." The ongoing hostility to Hoyle's theories among astrophysicists, even after his death? "Academic politics." The resistance of almost everyone to the Burbidges' work? "It's all politics." Margaret, asked if she agrees with Geoffrey about the prevalence of politics in science, closes her eyes as if in pain and whispers, "Yes."

The Burbidges have reason to be skeptical. In the late 1940s, the Carnegie Foundation refused Margaret a fellowship at the observatory on Mount Wilson, where Hubble worked, because she is a woman. In 1983 the

'As a betting man I have to put some odds on the idea that maybe the Big Bang is right. But they will put no odds on the possibility that they're wrong'
Nobel committee in physics recognized the work of B2FH but awarded a prize to Fowler alone—who protested the apparent rebuke to Hoyle and his belief in the steady state theory. (Nobel bylaws restrict the number of recipients in one category to three, so B2FH always knew that at least one of them wouldn't be going to Stockholm.) And by being denied telescope time and good research grants, the Burbidges say they've been repeatedly hampered in their decades-long attempt to collect data that could help validate their ideas.

The battle between steady staters and Big Bang advocates hinges on an effect called redshift—the way a star's light is shifted toward the red end of the spectrum because of its motion away from the viewer. Both sides accept that the faster a source of light recedes from you, the more intensely it exhibits a redshift. And both agree that if the universe is expanding, then objects farther from us should exhibit higher redshifts. Where they differ is that steady staters believe some objects with high redshifts—especially certain quasars—are actually nearby matter traveling at a high velocity. According to the Big Bang theory, quasars lie at extreme distances. But according to the steady state theory, quasars are being expelled by galaxies, so in these cases the high redshifts indicate the rapid motion of objects that could be relatively nearby.


Since the 1960s Margaret and a few others have been collecting examples of galaxies and quasars in seemingly close proximity to one another. Is that proximity real? If so, then galaxies may well eject quasars as

AIP Emilio Segre Visual Archives

Geoffrey Burbidge (front row, second from left) and Margaret Burbidge (second row, fifth from left) at the Institute for Theoretical Astronomy at Cambridge in 1967.
the steady state theory suggests. Or are the galaxy-quasar pairings optical illusions, like a smokestack that only appears to be producing a storm cloud that, in reality, lies a great distance beyond it? To answer that question, astronomers have to determine whether galaxies and quasars lie close together in just a few cases or frequently enough to beat the odds. And to answer that question would require many observers working on many telescopes. But it's tough to get access to big telescopes for a project that most astronomers consider quixotic. "Margaret continues to get observing time because she's Margaret Burbidge and it's hard to deny her," Geoffrey says. "It's slow work," Margaret sighs, "because nobody else is doing it."

 I'm not a good politician," Geoffrey  Burbidge offers over dinner one night at the Shores, a beachfront restaurant where the Burbidges often dined with Hoyle. "I believe in speaking my mind. I'm not afraid to make enemies. And I do."

As if to prove his point, the restaurant's hostess appears at his elbow, and Geoffrey seizes the opportunity to complain about the noise the other night when he and Margaret came for dinner with their daughter and son-in-law. The hostess shifts from foot to foot. She tries to stammer an apology or explanation, but Geoffrey repeatedly overrides her. Finally he mutters, "It's OK, it's fine, you're doing fine," leaving Margaret to add, for the hostess's benefit, "It is nice here, with the ocean."

When Geoffrey launches into complaints in his office, he likes to lean his substantial bulk back in a chair, tilt his head until he's communing with the ceiling, and spout. He doesn't tolerate interruptions or requests to clarify a point. He simply raises his voice and silences the perceived opposition. Even when he remembers his manners and asks an interlocutor a question, he tends to interrupt with a rising chorus of "but, but, but, but, BUT!" until his voice is the only sound he hears.

All of which may make Geoffrey Burbidge rude, but it does not make him wrong. Since the 1960s, he has published a series of articles that seem to challenge the Big Bang, culminating in his 1993 update of the steady state theory with Hoyle and Jayant Narlikar. At the January 2005 meeting of the American Astronomical Society, the Burbidges presented what they claim is a prime example of an allegedly distant quasar lying within a nearby galaxy.

By this point, however, their peers have pretty much stopped listening. "The Big Bang does not have the whole truth," Michael Turner, an influential cosmologist at the University of Chicago, concedes. "But I can't imagine somebody not acknowledging that it has much of the truth." He points to a series of recent cosmic measurements that seem to support the Big Bang and refute the steady state.

Even when fellow cosmologists do acknowledge the Burbidges' current work, the response ranges from quaint admiration to contempt. In 2000, when Hoyle, Geoffrey Burbidge, and Narlikar published their monograph, "A Different Approach to Cosmology," astrophysicist Mario Livio wrote, "It is extremely important for such skepticism to exist and for such books to be written." The following year, Hoyle's obituary in the journal Nature ended with a quote from one of his colleagues, responding to the question of whether he'd read Hoyle's monograph: "Wouldn't waste the time."

Geoffrey charges that the other side has proclaimed premature victory. "You've got Michael Turner shouting from the housetops, 'Look what we're proving! Look what we're proving!' He's quite sure that he knows the answer. As a betting man I have to put some odds on the idea that maybe the Big Bang is right. But they will put no odds on the possibility that they're wrong and we're right."