Hermann Bondi

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Sir Hermann Bondi KCB (born November 1, 1919 in Vienna , † September 10, 2005 in Cambridge ) was a British mathematician and cosmologist of Austrian descent.

Live and act

Hermann Bondi was born in Vienna as the son of the heart specialist Samuel Bondi and attended a secondary school in Vienna. Bondi studied from 1937 at the Trinity College of Cambridge University . In 1940 he was a Senior Wrangler in the Tripos exams . During the Second World War he was sent to Canada in 1940, where he met Thomas Gold , with whom he became a lifelong friend. After returning from Canada in 1942, he worked for the British Admiralty; he worked with Fred Hoyle on improving radar technology. Together with Fred Hoyle and Thomas Gold, Hermann Bondi formulated the steady state theory in 1948 .

Bondi taught from 1945 to 1948 as an Assistant Lecturer , from 1948 to 1954 as a University Lecturer mathematics at the University of Cambridge; from 1954 to 1971 he was a professor of mathematics. From 1971 until his retirement in 1985 he was adjunct professor at King's College in London . From 1983 to 1990 Bondi was a Master at Churchill College , Cambridge, and from 1990 to 2005 he was a fellow there .

In the course of his life he received many appointments, including as Director General of the European Space Research Organization (1967–1971), chief scientist at the British Ministry of Defense (1971–1977) and at the Department of Energy (1977–1980); from 1980 to 1984 he was chairman of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

Bondi wrote several popular science books, including an introduction to the theory of relativity, which consistently relies on space-time diagrams for explanation.

Bondi, originally a mathematician, also dealt with Kathleen Ollerenshaw with magic squares - they showed in 1982, the completeness of the list of magic squares of order 4 of de Bernard Frénicle Bessy .

Bondi married Christine Stockman in 1947, whom he met while working at Fred Hoyle as an astrophysics research student.

Awards and honorary positions

1959 Bondi was accepted as a member (" Fellow ") in the Royal Society . In 1973 he received the Bath Order, Second Class ( Knight Commander , abbreviated KCB) of the Order of the Bath .

Bondi served as president of several knowledge societies:

The universities in Sussex, Bath, Surrey, York, Southampton, Salford, Birmingham, St Andrews, Portsmouth and Vienna awarded him an honorary doctorate. Other awards:

Fonts

  • Universe at large. Anchor Books, 1960
  • Cosmology. Cambridge University Press, 1952, 1961 (reprinted by Dover), 2010 (further reprinted by Dover)
  • Myths and Assumptions in Physics. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1971 (new edition 1998) (English original: Assumption and Myth in Physical Theory, Cambridge University Press 1967)
  • Einstein's multiplication table - an introduction to the theory of relativity. Fischer TB, 1974, TR Verlagsunion, 1984 (English original: Relativity and common sense, a new approach to Einstein, Anchor Books 1964)
  • Science, Churchill and me. Pergamon Press, Oxford 1990 (autobiography)
  • Spherically symmetric models in general relativity. Monthly Notices Roy. Astron. Soc., Vol. 107, 1947, p. 410

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Sir Hermann Bondi theguardian.com, accessed October 2, 2013
  2. ↑ Minor Planet Circ. 60298
personal data
SURNAME Bondi, Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British mathematician and cosmologist
DATE OF BIRTH November 1, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH September 10, 2005
Place of death Cambridge , England