Robert May

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Robert May, Baron May of Oxford, at Harvard in 2009

Robert McCredie "Bob" May, Baron May of Oxford OM , AC , Kt (born January 8, 1936 in Sydney , New South Wales , Australia - †  April 28, 2020 ) was a British physicist and biologist .

May was President of the Royal Society from 2000 to 2005 . He conducted research mainly in the fields of zoology and theoretical biology and taught at Imperial College London .

Career

Robert May completed his studies in theoretical physics and chemical engineering at the University of Sydney in 1956 . In 1959 he received his doctorate in theoretical physics. First he worked as a professor of physics at the University of Sydney, where he began to deal with questions of ecology from the early 1970s after working on Bose-Einstein condensation and superconductivity . In 1973 he became professor of biology at Princeton University and in 1989 was appointed professor at the zoology department of Oxford University , where he had been professor emeritus since 2003.

In 1979 he was elected as a member of the traditional English Royal Society . In 1996, Queen Elizabeth II knighted him as a Knight Bachelor . In 2000 he finally became president of the Royal Society, a year later he was raised to the nobility due to his scientific life achievement as a life peer and thereby became a crossbencher member of the House of Lords . Originally May had sought the title of Baron May of Woollahra after a suburb of Sydney, which was not achieved due to an objection from the Australian Protocol Office, so he chose the title of Baron May of Oxford , of Oxford in the County of Oxfordshire. In 2002 he was appointed a member of the Order of Merit .

Robert May has received numerous scientific and social awards and has held many important positions in the scientific community. Among other things, he was senior scientific advisor to the British government from 1995 to 2005, as well as a board member of the British Science Association . In addition, numerous universities have awarded him honorary doctorates .

From the 1970s onwards, May not only influenced theoretical ecology and population biology ; he was also a pioneer of chaos theory by presenting simple models that showed very complicated behavior.

Positions

Lord May was an avowed agnostic and regularly campaigned for stricter measures against anthropogenic climate change and for a more popular scientific dissemination of the theory of evolution in the wake of Charles Darwin.

From Lord May's point of view, climate change is the biggest problem mankind has faced so far. At the 2009 annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science , he criticized fundamentalist religious views of the religious right as the main proponent of skepticism and denial in the political controversy over global warming . Anyone who believes in an imminent end of the world for religious reasons does not care about climate change. However, May admitted that the belief in a powerful deity in the past had also brought about increased social cooperation and unity. This is exactly what would be necessary to combat climate change; a supernatural punitive instance such as the stronger commitment of religious leaders against climate change are possible solutions to implement the drastic and radical measures that May demand.

Private

May was married and had a daughter.

Quotes

“Climate change is the biggest problem that mankind has ever faced. No other species in the history of life on Earth has ever faced a problem of its own creation that is as serious as this one. [...] We have to confront this threat. Unfortunately the media all too often does this in a way that relegates the most important issue facing our species as if it was a soccer match between two competing sides of equal strength. It's not. If you want to compare it [the debate over the existence of global warming] to a football match, it is more like Manchester United taking on three primary school children. It is as ridiculous as that. On one hand, you have the entire scientific community and on the other you have a handful of people, half of them crackpots. Nevertheless, this is still presented as an unresolved battle. That is simply not true. It has been resolved. Only the details of climatic change's impact have still to be worked out. "

- Interview, The Observer

"... the behavioral sciences are the sciences that we are going have to depend on to save us."

- Lecture, Santa Fe Institute , 2012

Important prizes and awards

Fonts (selection)

  • Robert M. May: Stability and Complexity in Model Ecosystems. 1973, 1974, Princeton University Press, ISBN 0-691-08125-5 .
  • Robert M. May: The Dimensions of Life on Earth. In: Peter H. Raven (Ed.): Nature and Human Society. The Quest for a Sustainable World. National Research Council, National Academy Press, Washington DC, 1997, ISBN 0-309-06555-0 .
  • Robert M. May: Threats to tomorrow's world . Address of the President, Lord May of Oxford OM AC FRS, given at the Anniversary Meeting on November 30, 2005. In: Notes and Records of The Royal Society 60 (1), January 22, 2006, pp. 109-130, doi : 10.1098 / rsnr.2005.0134 .
  • Robert M. May, Simon A. Levin , George Sugihara: Ecology for bankers . In: Nature , Vol. 451, February 21, 2008, pp. 893–895 ( PDF , accessed May 9, 2020).

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Robert May, former UK chief scientist and chaos theory pioneer, dies aged 84. April 30, 2020, accessed April 30, 2020 (English).
  2. ↑ a b CV at the House of Lords. Retrieved April 13, 2019 .
  3. ^ R. May: Simple mathematical models with very complicated dynamics . In: Nature . tape 261 , 1976, pp. 459-467 , doi : 10.1038 / 261459a0 .
  4. ^ A b Robin McKie: There is going to be no magic solution . Interview with Robert May in: The Observer . Retrieved December 19, 2013.
  5. ↑ Interview with Robert May as part of the Darwin Lecture Series 2011 at Cambridge University . Video (18 min 23 sec), accessed on December 19, 2013.
  6. ↑ Literally according to the Daily Telegraph: A supernatural punisher maybe part of the solution
  7. ^ Richard Alleyne: Maybe religion is the answer claims atheist scientist . In: The Daily Telegraph , September 7, 2009
  8. ^ People and Tomorrow's (Too Small) World . Lecture (video, 1 h 18 min), Stanislaw Ulam Memorial Lectures, Santa Fe Institute , October 2012.
  9. ↑ Directory of members: Robert May. Academia Europaea, accessed on January 3, 2018 (English, with biographical and other information).
  10. ↑ EMBO enlarges its membership for 50th anniversary. Press release from May 8, 2014 at the Science Information Service (idw-online.de)
personal data
SURNAME May, Robert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES May of Oxford, Robert McCredie May Baron
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British physicist and biologist
DATE OF BIRTH January 8, 1936
PLACE OF BIRTH Sydney , New South Wales , Australia
DATE OF DEATH April 28, 2020