Mathematician:Hermann Bondi

Mathematician

British-Austrian mathematician and cosmologist.

Best known for developing the steady state model of the universe with Fred Hoyle and Thomas Gold as an alternative to the Big Bang theory.

Contributed to the theory of general relativity and was the first to analyze the inertial and gravitational interaction of negative mass.

Nationality

Austrian, later British

History

• Born: 1 November 1919 in Vienna, Austria
• 1937: Started studying for the mathematical tripos at Trinity College, Cambridge
• 1939: Interned as a "friendly alien"
• 1941: Released from internment, to work with Fred Hoyle on radar
• 1943 -- 1949: A fellow of Trinity College
• 1945 -- 1954: Lectured in mathematics at Cambridge
• 1946: Became a British citizen
• 1948: Formulated steady state model
• 1952 -- 1954: Once more a fellow of Trinity College
• 1954: Became a professor at King's College London
• 1956 -- 1964: Secretary of the Royal Astronomical Society
• 1959: Became a fellow of the Royal Society
• 1967 -- 1971: Director-General of the European Space Research Organisation (ESRO)
• 1971 -- 1977: Chief Scientific Adviser to Ministry of Defence
• 1973: Appointed a Knight Commander of the Bath
• 1974: Awarded an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Science) by the University of Bath
• 1977 -- 1980: Chief Scientific Adviser to Department of Energy
• 1980 -- 1984: Chairman of Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)
• 1981 -- 1997: President of Society for Research into Higher Education
• 1982 -- 1999: President of British Humanist Association
• 1982 -- 2005 (his death): President of the Rationalist Press Association
• 1983: Awarded the Einstein Society Gold Medal
• 1983 -- 1990: Master of Churchill College, Cambridge
• 1985: Given the title of Emeritus Professor there at King's College London
• 1985 -- 1987: President of Hydrographic Society
• 1988: Awarded the Gold Medal of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications
• 1990: Awarded the G.D. Birla International Award for Humanism
• 2001: Awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society
• Died: 10 September 2005 in Cambridge, England, UK

Theorems and Definitions

• Steady State Model of cosmology, with Fred Hoyle and Thomas Gold
• Sticky Bead Argument

• Bondi Radiation Coordinates
• Bondi $k$-Calculus
• Bondi Mass
• Bondi News

• Bondi Accretion
• Bondi Radius

• Lemaître-Tolman-Bondi Metric (with Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître and Richard Chace Tolman)

Publications

• 1963: A series of television programs called $E = mc^2$
• 1999: Spherically Symmetrical Models in General Relativity

Also known as

Some sources give his first name as Herman.

Sources

• 2014: Christopher Clapham and James Nicholson: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Mathematics (5th ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): Bondi, Sir Herman (1919-2005)