"Fred Hoyle - The Black Cloud" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hoyle Fred)

The Black Cloud (v1.1)

Fred Hoyle, 1959




PREFACE


I hope that my scientific colleagues will enjoy this frolic. After all, there is very
little here that could not conceivably happen.
Since institutional posts that actually exist are mentioned in the story, I have
been at particular pains to ensure that the associated characters have no
reference to actual holders of these posts.
It is commonplace to identify opinions forcibly expressed by a character with
the author's own. At the risk of triviality, I would add that this association may be
unwarranted.
F. H.




PROLOGUE


The episode of the Black Cloud has always had a great fascination for me. The
thesis that won me my Fellowship at Queens' College, Cambridge, was concerned
with some aspects of this epic event. This work was later published, after suitable
modifications, as a chapter in Sir Henry Clayton's History of the Black Cloud,
much to my gratification.
It was not altogether surprising therefore that Sir John McNeil, our late Senior
Fellow and well-known physician, should have willed to me on his death a
voluminous collection of papers dealing with his own personal experiences of the
Cloud. More surprising, however, was the letter that accompanied the papers. It
read:


Queens' College, 19 August, 2020
My dear Blythe,
I trust you will forgive an old man for chuckling occasionally to himself over
some of your speculations concerning the Black Cloud. As it happened, I was so
placed during the crisis that I learned of the real nature of the Cloud. This
information for various cogent reasons has never been made public and seems
unknown to the writers of official histories (sic!). It has caused me much anxiety
of mind to decide whether my knowledge should pass away with me or not. In
the event I have decided to hand on my difficulties and uncertainties to you.
These will I believe become clearer to you when you have read my MS., which,
incidentally, I have written in the third person so that I myself do not obtrude too
much on the story!