Thomas Gold

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Gold

Jump to navigation Jump to search

For other people named Thomas Gold, see Thomas Gold (disambiguation).

Thomas Gold

Born May 22, 1920

Vienna, Austria

Died June 22, 2004 (aged 84)

Ithaca, New York

Nationality Austrian
British

American

Alma mater Trinity College, Cambridge

Known for Steady-state theory, Abiogenic petroleum origin

Awards John Frederick Lewis Award (1972)

Humboldt Prize (1979)
Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1985)

Scientific career

Fields Astrophysics, astronomy, biophysics,

cosmology, geophysics, aerospace engineering

Institutions University of Cambridge, Royal Observatory,

Greenwich,
Harvard University, Cornell University

1/15
 Doctoral advisor R. J. Pumphrey

Doctoral Stanton J. Peale[1]

students Peter Goldreich[1]

Thomas Gold (also known as Tommy Gold),[2] born on May 22, 1920, died on June 22,
2004[3] was an Austrian-born astrophysicist, a professor of astronomy at Cornell
University, a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and a Fellow of the Royal
Society (London).[3] Gold was one of three young Cambridge scientists who in 1948
proposed the now mostly abandoned "steady state" hypothesis of the universe. Gold's
work crossed academic and scientific boundaries, into biophysics, astronomy, aerospace
engineering, and geophysics.

Gold was born on May 22, 1920 in Vienna, Austria to Max Gold, a wealthy Jewish
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.[4] Following
the start of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler'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 at the Lyceum Alpinum Zuoz in Zuoz,
Switzerland, where he quickly proved to be a clever, competitive and physically and
mentally aggressive individual.[5] Gold finished his schooling at Zuoz in 1938, and fled
with his family to England after the German invasion of Austria in early 1938. Gold
entered Trinity College, Cambridge in 1939 and began studying mechanical sciences.[6] In
May 1940, just as Hitler was commencing his advance in Belgium and France, Gold was
sent into internment as an enemy alien by the British government. It was on the first
night of internment, at an army barracks in Bury St Edmunds, that he met his future
collaborator and close friend, Hermann Bondi.[7][8]

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.[7] After graduating with a pass (Ordinary)
degree in June 1942, Gold worked briefly as an agricultural labourer and lumberjack in
northern England before joining Bondi and Fred Hoyle on naval research into radar
ground clutter near Dunsfold, Surrey. The three men would spend their off-duty hours in
"intense and wide-ranging scientific discussion" on topics such as cosmology,
mathematics and astrophysics.[9] Within months, Gold was placed in charge of
constructing new radar systems. Gold determined how landing craft could use radar to
navigate to the appropriate landing spot on D-Day and also discovered that the German
navy had fitted snorkels to its U-boats, making them operable underwater while still
taking in air from above the surface.[4]

2/15
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 to help construct the world's largest magnetron, a device invented by two
British scientists in 1940 that generated intense microwaves for radar. Soon after, Gold
joined R. J. Pumphrey, a zoologist 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 on the human ear. He found that the degree of resonance observed in the
cochlea was not in accordance with the level of damping that would be expected from
the viscosity of the watery liquid that fills the inner ear. In 1948, Gold hypothesized that
the ear operates by "regeneration", in that electromechanical action occurs when
electrical energy is used to counteract the effects of damping.[10] Although Gold won a
prize fellowship from Trinity College for his thesis on the regeneration and obtained a
junior lectureship at the Cavendish Laboratory, his theory was widely ignored by ear
specialists and physiologists, such as future Nobel Prize winner Georg von Békésy, who
did not believe the cochlea operated under a feedback system. [11] In the 1970s,
researchers discovered that Gold's hypothesis had been correct – the ear contained
microscopic hair cells that operated on a feedback mechanism to generate
resonance.[8][10]

Main article: Steady-state theory

Gold began discussing problems in physics with Hoyle and Bondi again, centering on the
issues over redshift and Hubble's law. This led the three to all start questioning the Big
Bang theory originally proposed by Georges Lemaître in 1931 and later advanced by
George Gamow, which suggested that the universe 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".[12]

Two papers were published in 1948 discussing the "steady-state theory" as an alternative
to the Big Bang: one by Gold and Bondi, the other by Hoyle. In their seminal paper, Gold
and Bondi asserted that although the universe is expanding, it nevertheless does not
change its look over time; it has no beginning and no end.[12][13] They proposed the
perfect cosmological principle as the underpinning of their theory, which held that the
universe is homogeneous and isotropic 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."[14] 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. [15] They estimated that within the expanding universe, hydrogen atoms
were being created out of a vacuum at a rate of one atom per cubic meter per 109
[16] 3/15
years. [16] 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. [17]

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: quasars and radio galaxies 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.[13] In addition, proponents of the theory predicted that
in addition to hydrogen atoms, antimatter would also be produced, as with cosmic
gamma ray background from the annihilation of protons and antiprotons and X-ray
emitting gas from the creation of neutrons.[13]

For most cosmologists, the refutation of the steady-state theory came with the discovery
of the cosmic microwave background radiation in 1965, which was predicted by the Big
Bang theory.[18] Stephen Hawking 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."[19] 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.[8]

Gold suggested a "garbage theory" for the origin of life which was an accidental
panspermia; the theory says that life on Earth might have spread from a pile of waste
products accidentally dumped on Earth long ago by extraterrestrials.[20]

In 1951, at a meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society, Gold proposed that the source
of recent radio signals detected from space was outside the Milky Way galaxy, much to
the derision of radio astronomer Martin Ryle and several mathematical cosmologists.
However, a year later, a distant source was identified and Gold announced at an
International Astronomical Union 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.[21]

Gold left Cambridge in 1952 to become the chief assistant to Astronomer Royal Harold
Spencer Jones at the Royal Greenwich Observatory in Herstmonceux, Sussex, England.
While there, Gold attracted some controversy by suggesting that the interaction between
charged particles from the Sun with the Earth's magnetic field in creating magnetic

[22] 4/15
storms in the upper atmosphere was an example of a collisionless shock wave.[22] 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.[8]

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.[18] In early 1959, he accepted an appointment at Cornell University,
which had offered him the opportunity to set up an interdisciplinary unit for radiophysics
and space research, and take charge of the Department of Astronomy.[23] 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 and Frank Drake, helped establish the world's largest radio
telescope at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico and the Cornell-Sydney University
Astronomy Center with Harry Messel. 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.[24][25][26]

In 1959, Gold expanded on his previous prediction of

a collisionless shock wave, arguing that solar flares
would eject material into magnetic clouds to produce
a shock front that would result in geomagnetic
storms. He also coined the term "magnetosphere" in
his paper "Motions in the Magnetosphere of the
Earth" to describe "the region above the ionosphere
in which the magnetic field of the Earth has a
dominant control over the motions of gas and fast
charged particles ... [which was] known to extend out
to a distance of the order of 10 Earth radii".[27] In The discovery of a pulsar with 0.033
second period in the Crab Nebula led
1960, Gold collaborated again with Fred Hoyle to
to the acceptance of Gold's theory on
show that magnetic energy fueled solar flares and pulsars.
that flares were triggered when opposite magnetic
loops interact and release their stored energy.[28][29]

In 1968, a Cambridge radio astronomy postgraduate student Jocelyn Bell Burnell and her
doctoral adviser Antony Hewish discovered a pulsing radio source with a period of 1.33
seconds. The source – which was termed "pulsar" – emitted beams of electromagnetic
radiation at a very short and consistent interval. Gold proposed that these objects were
rapidly rotating neutron stars. Gold argued that due to their strong magnetic 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 using the Arecibo radio telescope, opening the door for future
[30] 5/15
advancements in solid-state physics and astronomy. [30] Anthony Tucker of The Guardian
remarked that Gold's discovery paved the way for Stephen Hawking's groundbreaking
research into black holes.[9]

From the 1950s, Gold served as a consultant to NASA

and held positions on several national space
committees, including the President's Science
Advisory Committee, as the United States 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".[23] This led to the dust being jokingly referred Bootprint of Lunar Module Pilot Buzz
Aldrin on the surface of the Moon.
to as "Gold dust"[31] or "Gold's dust".[32] Gold initially
Aldrin photographed this bootprint on
suggested that astronauts would sink into the dust, July 20, 1969, as part of investigations
but upon later analysis of impact craters and into the soil mechanics of the lunar
surface.
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 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.[33] When the Apollo 11 crew landed on
the Moon in 1969 and brought back the first samples of lunar rocks, 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. [23] Gold had also
contributed to the Apollo program by designing the Apollo Lunar Surface Closeup
Camera (ALSCC) (a kind of stereo camera) used on the Apollo 11, 12, and 14
missions.[23][34]

In the 1970s and 1980s, Gold was a vocal critic of NASA's Space Shuttle 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. In a letter to
NASA administrator James C. Fletcher, George Low 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".[35] Gold recalled the
aftermath of his testimony in a 1983 interview with astronomy historian David H.
DeVorkin:
6/15
 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.[36]

Main article: Abiogenic petroleum origin

Gold first became interested in the origins of petroleum in the 1950s, postulating a
theory on the abiogenic formation of fossil fuels. Gold engaged in thorough discussion
on the matter with Fred Hoyle, who even included a chapter on "Gold's Pore Theory" in
his 1955 book Frontiers in Astronomy.[25][37] In the late 1970s, just as the United States
faced another major energy crisis, Gold resurrected his work on petroleum. In 1977, a
research submarine near the Galapagos Islands discovered a number of thriving
ecosystems down on the ocean floor, living alongside hydrothermal vents. Later
expeditions found that these vents were host to a number of organisms, including giant
tube worms and albino crabs, that survived off heat-loving chemosynthetic microbes.
The discovery of life in this adverse environment led Gold to reconsider the established
interpretation of biogenic petroleum formation. Gold believed that "biology is just a
branch of thermodynamics" and that the history of life is just "a gradual systematic
development toward more efficient ways of degrading energy".[38]

He began his investigation by studying how earthquakes facilitated the migration of

methane gas from the deep Earth to the surface.[39] He speculated that a large enough
earthquake would fracture the ground, thus opening up an "escape route" for gas. Gold
believed that this would explain the number of unusual phenomena associated with
earthquakes, such as fires, flares, earthquake lights and gas emissions. With his
colleague Steven Soter, Gold 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 found to be lying on major earthquake belts. Gold and Soter
suggested that these belts may explain the upward migration of gases through the
ground, and subsequently, the production of oil and gas fields.[39][40]

Gold theorized that since petroleum and its component hydrocarbons were present
across the entire universe, there was no reason to believe "that on Earth they must be
biological in origin".[38] Gold proposed that fuels were trapped inside the core of the
7/15
Earth in randomized molecular form nearly 4.5 billion years ago. Over time, the extreme
heat of the core "sweated" the rocks that contained these molecules, pushing them up
through the porous layers of the Earth. As they move up toward the surface, the
hydrocarbons fueled the development of large microbial colonies, which served as the
basis for life on Earth. The migrating fossil fuels collect biological remnants before
becoming trapped in deep underground reservoirs.[38] Soon after Gold started
publishing his theories, researchers discovered a number of ecosystems functioning
under "conditions of heat and pressure once thought impossible to sustain life". In
addition, Gold discovered that the location of major oil-producing regions in the Middle
East and southeast Asia was defined by large scale patterns in surface geology and
topography, such as deep fault lines. He also pointed to the abundance of helium in oil
and gas reserves as evidence for "a deep source of the hydrocarbons".[39] Moreover, a
few oil reserves thought to have been exhausted were suddenly generating vast
amounts of crude oil.[41] 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.[42][43]

Gold was accused of plagiarizing the abiogenic theory from Soviet geologists who first
published it in the 1950s, but the accusations were refuted.[44][45] After first publishing
his views on abiogenic petroleum in 1979, Gold began finding the papers on the subject
by Soviet geologists and had them translated. He was both disappointed (that his ideas
were not original) and delighted (because such independent formulation of these ideas
added weight to the hypothesis). He always credited the Soviet work once he knew about
it.[3] His 1987 book Power from the Earth devoted five pages to describing important
Russian contributions to the field, including those by Mendeleev, Sokoloff, Vernadsky,
Kudryavtsev, Beskrovny, Porfir'ev, Kravtsov, Kropotkin, Valyaev, Voronoy, and
Chekaliuk.[44]

Gold began testing his theory in 1986 when, with the

backing of a group of investors, Vattenfall and the Gas
Research Institute, he commenced efforts to drill a
deep borehole – named Gravberg-1 – into the earth
near Lake Siljan in search of abiogenic gas in the
mantle. The region was the site of a large meteor
crater, which would have "opened channels deep
enough for the methane to migrate upward" and
formed deposits in caprock just a few miles beneath
the surface.[46] He estimated that the fractures near
Lake Siljan reached down nearly 40 kilometres (25 mi) Sweden's Lake Siljan is a large lake
created from an eroded impact
into the earth.[47]
crater, the Siljan Ring, that was
formed by a meteorite impact about
In 1987, approximately 900 barrels (140 m 3) of drilling 370 million years ago. It was at this
lubricant disappeared nearly 20,000 feet (6,100 m) lake that Gold proposed as the most
likely place to test the hypothesis on
into the ground, leading Gold to believe that the the origin of petroleum because it

[48] 8/15
lubricant had fallen into a methane reservoir.[48] Soon was one of the few places in the
world where the granite basement
after, the team brought up nearly 100 liters of black was cracked sufficiently to allow oil to
oily sludge to the surface. Gold claimed that the seep up from the mantle.

sludge contained both oil and remnants of

archaebacteria. 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".[49] Geochemist Geoffrey P.
Glasby speculated that the sludge could have been formed from the Fischer–Tropsch
process, a catalyzed chemical reaction in which synthesis gas, a mixture of carbon
monoxide and hydrogen, is converted into liquid hydrocarbons.[50] 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".[51]
Geochemist Paul Philp analyzed the sludge and concluded that he could not differentiate
between the samples of sludge and oil seep found in sedimentary shale rocks near the
surface. He reasoned that oil had migrated from the shale down to the granite deep in
the ground.[52] 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."[51]

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.[53]

The drill hit oil in the spring of 1989, but only collected about 80 barrels (13 m 3). 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 kilometres (4.2 mi). 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". By
October 1991, the drill hit oil 3.8 kilometres (2.4 mi) into the ground, but many skeptics
remained unconvinced of the site's prospects. [47][54] One skeptic, Christer Akerman, the
chief geologist of the Geological Survey of Sweden, remarked, "[t]here is every reason to
stay calm and await the analysis of what they have found. The point is also that they will
have to find commercially viable amounts, and it may be a long time before we know if
they do." [55] 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.[56] Some skeptics countered Gold's claims by
suggesting that the oil found was actually contamination from the drilling.[32]

9/15
In a 1992 paper "The Deep Hot Biosphere" in the Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences,[57] 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 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.

Gold also published a book of the same title in 1999, which expanded on the arguments
in his 1992 paper and included speculations on the origin of life.[58]

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 theory for the
origin of the latter. The flows of underground hydrocarbons 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.[44]

Throughout his academic career, Gold received a

number of honors and distinctions. He was a Fellow
of the Royal Astronomical Society (1948), the Royal
Society (1964),[3] the American Geophysical Union
(1962), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
(1974), and the American Astronautical Society, a
member of the American Philosophical Society (1972),
the United States National Academy of Sciences
(1974) and the International Academy of Astronautics,
and an Honorary Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge
(1986).[59] In addition, he served as President of the
New York Astronomical Society from 1981 to 1986.[24]
Gold won the John Frederick Lewis Prize from the
American Philosophical Society in 1972 for his paper Carl Sagan, hired by Gold after Sagan
"The Nature of the Lunar Surface: Recent was denied tenure at Harvard
University in 1968
Evidence"[60] and the Humboldt Prize from the
Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in 1979.[59] In
1985, Gold won the prestigious Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society, an award
whose recipients include Fred Hoyle, Hermann Bondi, Martin Ryle, Edwin Hubble, James
Van Allen, Fritz Zwicky, Hannes Alfvén and Albert Einstein.[61] Gold did not earn a
doctorate, but received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Cambridge
University in 1969.[62]

10/15
Astrophysicists Geoffrey and Margaret Burbidge remarked that Gold "was one of the
outstanding physicists of his time" and that his "versatility was unmatched".[63] In his
foreword to Gold's book The Deep Hot Biosphere, theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson
stated, "Gold's theories are always original, always important, usually controversial – and
usually right."[64]

In the journal Nature, Hermann Bondi 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."[23]
Stanley F. Dermott wrote "Tommy was a handsome, charming and generous man and a
loyal colleague who formed many long-lasting friendships. A witty and articulate speaker,
he was 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."[65] Anthony Tucker of The
Guardian said, "Throughout his life he 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."[9] Harvard biologist Stephen Jay
Gould labeled Gold as "one of America's most iconoclastic scientists". [38] Gold has been
derided by geologists, such as Harmon Craig and John Hunt,[38] who are strongly
opposed to Gold's abiogenic petroleum theory. Others had even started campaigns to
prevent Gold from publishing his findings.[38]

Gold married his first wife, Merle Eleanor Tuberg, an American astrophysicist who had
worked with Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, in 1947. He had three daughters with her –
Linda, Lucy, and Tanya. After divorcing her, Gold married Carvel Lee Beyer in 1972.[4][8][9]
With her, he had a daughter Lauren.

Thomas Gold died at the age of 84 from complications due to heart disease, at Cayuga
Medical Center in Ithaca, New York. He was buried in the Pleasant Grove Cemetery in
Ithaca.[24] He was survived by his wife, four daughters, and six grandchildren. [32]

Gold, T.; Hoyle, F. (1960), "On the origin of solar flares", Monthly Notices of the Royal
Astronomical Society, 120 (2): 89–105, Bibcode:1960MNRAS.120...89G,
doi:10.1093/mnras/120.2.89, ISSN 1365-2966.
Gold, T. (1987), Power From the Earth: Deep Earth Gas - Energy for the Future , London:
Dent & Sons, ISBN 978-0-460-04462-2.
Gold, T. (1992), "The deep, hot biosphere", Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences, 89 (13): 6045–6049, Bibcode:1992PNAS...89.6045G,
doi:10.1073/pnas.89.13.6045, ISSN 1091-6490, PMC 49434, PMID 1631089.

11/15
 Gold, T. (1999), The Deep Hot Biosphere, New York: Springer, ISBN 978-0-387-98546-6.
Gold, T. (2012), Taking the Back Off the Watch: A Personal Memoir, New York: Springer,
ISBN 9783642275876.

1. ^ a b "Milestones". Science. 305 (5680): 39b–. 2004. doi:10.1126/science.305.5680.39b..

2. ^ Who Was Tommy Gold? Published by aip.org Retrieved on April 28, 2019
3. ^ a b c d Bondi, H. (2006). "Thomas Gold. 22 May 1920 -- 22 June 2004: Elected FRS
1964". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society . 52: 117–135.
doi:10.1098/rsbm.2006.0009.
4. ^ a b c Mitton 2004.
5. ^ Burbidge & Burbidge 2006, p. 3.
6. ^ Burbidge & Burbidge 2006, pp. 3–4.
7. ^ a b Burbidge & Burbidge 2006, p. 4.
8. ^ a b c d e The Telegraph 2004.
9. ^ a b c d Tucker 2004.
10. ^ a b Burbidge & Burbidge 2006, p. 5.
11. ^ Hall, James W. (2000), Handbook of otoacoustic emissions, San Diego:
Singular/Thomson Learning, p. 546, ISBN 978-1-56593-873-1.
12. ^ a b Burbidge & Burbidge 2006, p. 6.
13. ^ a b c Silk, Joseph (September 5, 1994), Fundamental Issues in Cosmology, University of
California, Berkeley, retrieved June 17, 2009.
14. ^ Bondi & Gold 1948, pp. 253–254.
15. ^ Bondi & Gold 1948, p. 255.
16. ^ Bondi & Gold 1948, p. 256.
17. ^ Bondi & Gold 1948, p. 262.
18. ^ a b Burbidge & Burbidge 2006, p. 7.
19. ^ Hawking, Stephen (2003), "Sixty years in a nutshell", in Gibbons, G. W.; Shellard, E. Paul
S.; Rankin, Stuart J. (eds.), The future of theoretical physics and cosmology , Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, p. 109, ISBN 978-0-521-82081-3.
20. ^ Gold, T. "Cosmic Garbage," Air Force and Space Digest, 65 (May 1960).
21. ^ Burbidge & Burbidge 2006, pp. 6–7.
22. ^ Wilford 1980.
23. ^ a b c d e Bondi 2004.
24. ^ a b c Pearce 2004.
25. ^ a b Dermott 2004, p. 1674.
26. ^ Bondi 2004b.
27. ^ Gold 1959, p. 1219.
28. ^ Lang, Kenneth R. (2006), A Companion to Astronomy and Astrophysics: Chronology
and Glossary with Data Tables, New York: Springer, p. 77, ISBN 978-0-387-30734-3.
29. ^ Lang, Kenneth R. (2008), The Sun from Space (2nd ed.), New York: Springer, p. 326,
ISBN 978-3-540-76952-1.
30. ^ Burbidge & Burbidge 2006, pp. 9–10.
12/15
31. ^ Levy, David H. (2000). Shoemaker by Levy: The Man Who Made an Impact . Princeton
University Press. p. 106. ISBN 978-0691002255.
32. ^ a b c Bernstein 2004.
33. ^ Burbidge & Burbidge 2006, p. 8.
34. ^ Apollo Lunar Surface Closeup Camera (ALSCC) Image Catalog, Apollo Image Atlas,
Lunar and Planetary Institute
35. ^ Burbidge & Burbidge 2006, p. 9.
36. ^ Oral History Transcript — Thomas Gold, American Institute of Physics Niels Bohr
Library & Archives, retrieved June 19, 2009.
37. ^ Gold 1999, p. 53.
38. ^ a b c d e f Ringle 1999.
39. ^ a b c Glasby 2006, p. 89.
40. ^ Gold & Soter 1980.
41. ^ Cooper, Christopher (16 April 1999). "Odd Reservoir Off Louisiana Prods Oil Experts to
Seek a Deeper Meaning". Wall Street Journal. Houston, TX USA. Retrieved 18 May 2015.
"Something mysterious is going on at Eugene Island 330"
42. ^ Vielvoye, Roger (February 5, 1979), "Gold's gas theory", Oil & Gas Journal, p. 30.
43. ^ Laskoski, Gregg (14 September 2011). "Abiotic Oil a Theory Worth Exploring". U.S.
News & World Report. Retrieved 18 May 2015. "Oil may not be formed the way we think
it is."
44. ^ a b c DeRosa, Neil (15 September 2007). "Black Gold: Thomas Gold's Deep Hot
Biosphere and the Deep-Earth theories of the Origin of Petroleum". Meta Research
Bulletin. Archived from the original on 20 May 2015. Retrieved 18 May 2015.
45. ^ "Plagiarism Overview". Gas Resources. Retrieved 18 May 2015. "The attempted
plagiarism of the modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of deep, abiotic petroleum origins"
46. ^ Glasby 2006, p. 90.
47. ^ a b Cole 1996, p. 748.
48. ^ Cole 1996, p. 747.
49. ^ Castaño, John R. (1993), "Prospects for commercial abiogenic gas production:
Implications from the Siljan Ring area, Sweden.", U.S. Geological Survey Professional
Paper (1570): 133–154.
50. ^ Gold 1992.
51. ^ Thomas Gold, 1999, The Deep Hot Biosphere, Springer, ISBN 0-387-95253-5
52. ^ a b Todd, Louise (May 2006), Royal Society: Gold, Thomas (1920–2004), AIM25,
retrieved June 21, 2009.
53. ^ Recipients of the John Frederick Lewis Award, American Philosophical Society, January
7, 2009, archived from the original on December 29, 2008, retrieved June 21, 2009 .
54. ^ Winners of the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society , Royal Astronomical
Society, February 15, 2005, archived from the original on November 22, 2005, retrieved
June 21, 2009.
55. ^ Dermott 2004, p. 1675.
56. ^ Burbidge & Burbidge 2006, p. 11.
57. ^ Gold 1999, p. xi.
58. ^ Dermott 2004, p. 1677.

13/15
Bernstein, Adam (June 24, 2004), "Theoretical Astrophysicist Thomas Gold Dies at 84",
The Washington Post, retrieved June 18, 2009.
Bondi, Hermann (June 29, 2004b), "Professor Thomas Gold: Astronomer of brilliant
ideas and wide interests", The Independent, retrieved June 22, 2009.
Glasby, Geoffrey B. (2006), "Abiogenic Origin of Hydrocarbons: An Historical Overview"
(PDF), Resource Geology, 56 (1): 85–98, doi:10.1111/j.1751-3928.2006.tb00271.x,
ISSN 1344-1698.
Mitton, Simon (2004), "Gold, Thomas (Tommy) (1920–2004)", Oxford Dictionary of
National Biography, retrieved 2009-06-13.
Pearce, Jeremy (June 24, 2004), "Thomas Gold, Astrophysicist And Innovator, Is Dead at
84", The New York Times, retrieved June 18, 2009.
Ringle, Ken (November 1, 1999), "A Scientific Heretic Delves Beneath the Surface", The
Washington Post, retrieved June 23, 2009.
Terzian, Yervant; Salpeter, Edwin E. (2005), "Obituary: Thomas Gold", Physics Today, 58
(2): 82, Bibcode:2005PhT....58b..82T, doi:10.1063/1.1897530, ISSN 0031-9228, archived
from the original on 2013-08-28
The Telegraph (June 25, 2004), "Thomas Gold", The Telegraph, retrieved June 14, 2009.
Tucker, Anthony (June 24, 2004), "Thomas Gold: The science maverick who challenged
establishment thinking – and quite often turned out to be right", The Guardian, retrieved
June 14, 2009.
Tytell, Eric D. (June 27, 2004), "Astronomer Thomas Gold, renowned for originality, dies
at 84", The Seattle Times, retrieved June 23, 2009.

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
Brown, David (November 2002), "Gas Origin Theories to be Studied", AAPG Explorer,
American Association of Petroleum Geologists.
Gold, Thomas (November 1, 2000), Thomas Gold, Cornell University, archived from the
original on April 7, 2005, retrieved June 25, 2009 .
Oil Doesn't Come from Squashed Ferns and Fish??, Suburban Emergency Management
Project, June 23, 2004, archived from the original on July 12, 2009, retrieved June 25,
2009 .
Segelken, Roger (June 23, 2004), "Thomas Gold, Cornell astronomer and brilliant
scientific gadfly, dies at 84", Cornell University News Service, retrieved June 25, 2009.
Kenney, J. F.; Shnyukov, Ac. Ye. F.; Krayushkin, V. A.; Karpov, I. K.; Kutcherov, V. G.;
Plotnikova, I. N. (2001), "Dismissal of the Claims of a Biological Connection for Natural
Petroleum", Energia, 22 (3): 26–34, archived from the original on 2003-02-21 .
Clarke, Tom (December 9, 2002), "Goldmine yields clues for life on Mars", Nature News,
doi:10.1038/news021209-1, archived from the original on September 9, 2009, retrieved
June 25, 2009 .
Rose, Walter; Pfannkuch, Hans Olaf (May 1982), "Unconventional Ideas About
Unconventional Gas", Proceedings of SPE Unconventional Gas Recovery Symposium,
Society of Petroleum Engineers, doi:10.2118/10836-MS, ISBN 978-1-55563-668-5.
14/15
Proskurowski, Giora; Lilley, Marvin D.; Seewald, Jeffery S.; Früh-Green, Gretchen L.;
Olson, Eric J.; Lupton, John E.; Sylva, Sean P.; Kelley, Deborah S. (2008), "Abiogenic
Hydrocarbon Production at Lost City Hydrothermal Field", Science, 319 (5863): 604–607,
doi:10.1126/science.1151194, PMID 18239121.
Thomas Gold interview
Thomas Gold Publications - Harvard
National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir

15/15