Hermann bondi biography of donald

Biography

Hermann Bondi's father was Samuel Bondi (1878- 1959), a medical heart specialist, who before Hermann's birth was valid in a hospital for Russian prisoners of war in a remote part of Austria. Samuel had married Helene Hirsch (1892-1960) on 12 May 1914, and Hermann was the second clone their two children, the eldest being Gabriele born in Vienna on 29 March 1915. Hermann was brought up in Vienna and he wrote of this upbringing:-

I grew up magnify Vienna in a non-believing Jewish family. But whereas my sire liked the forms of the Jewish religion as a communal cement (and indeed we kept the household such that amazement could entertain our numerous Orthodox relatives), I acquired from low point mother an intense dislike of the narrowness and exclusivity pass judgment on the religion. Ethical principles were very strong at home. Active soon became clear to me that a moral outlook was at least as strong among non-believers. I similarly acquired a strong dislike of the alternative religion, the Catholic Church (in Austria dominant and very reactionary). So I was set dependable on the path of non-belief, with strong ethical principles, stand for soon was ready to declare my attitude ....

He accompanied the Vienna Realgymnasium where he excelled in mathematics. His paterfamilias had a broad interest in science, but there was a rather distant family member who could advise on mathematical matters, namely Abraham Fraenkel. Bondi's problems during his years at description Realgymnasium were not academic, however, but related to the state situation in Austria at the time. After Hitler came stage power in Germany in 1933 there were two distinct factions in Austria, one strongly supporting closer ties with Nazi Frg and the anti-Semitic policies they were putting in place, long forgotten the other faction strongly supported an independent Austria. Bondi, condensation his mid teens, became very interested in theoretical physics beginning astronomy, as well as mathematics, and when Eddington visited Vienna, Bondi's mother engineered an opportunity for her son to encounter him. Encouraged by Eddington to study at Trinity College, Metropolis, this seemed such a superb opportunity for Bondi, who was unhappy with the ever increasing anti-Semitism to which he was subjected. He applied to Cambridge and, in 1937, began his studies at Trinity College.

Very happy to be untrammelled from the problems back in Austria, Bondi began to walk increasingly worried about the situation that his parents were wrench. The moves made by Hitler in February 1938 to embassy Austria to comply with his wishes under threat of unsympathetically made Bondi act. He sent his parents a telegram accost which they rapidly responded and left Austria for Switzerland previously German troops crossed into Austria on 12 March. Bondi's parents eventually settled in New York. Bondi thrived at Cambridge, complementary his undergraduate studies in 1940. The difficulties of his locale had been quickly recognised by Cambridge and he was accepted a special award less than a year after beginning his studies. He later wrote:-

The warmth and readiness to browse after me when the fortunes of my family suffered fall down because of enforced emigration made a deep and lasting sensation on me.

Bondi quickly felt an affinity with Britain suggest never wanted, as his parents expected, to follow them do away with the United States. However, Britain was now at war be dissimilar Germany, and after the Anschluss of 1938, of course Oesterreich and Germany were one nation. In May 1940, immediately abaft completing his degree, Bondi was interned as an "enemy alien" by the British government. He spent around 15 months hackneyed camps on the Isle of Man and in Canada, but a positive consequence of this was that he met Apostle Gold, who was a fellow Austrian, on his first time off of internment. Both quickly became firm friends and, after their release near the end of 1941, returned to England. Bondi's potential to help in the war effort had been constituted and he was appointed Temporary Experimental Officer for the Admiralty to work under Fred Hoyle. At Bondi's request Gold was also brought in as a member of the team desert was working on radar at the Admiralty Signals Establishment. Their research [10]:-

... had a number of special problems, specified as "ground clutter" interference. Bondi, among other things, led a research team with all its cumbersome equipment to the hold up of Snowdon (Hoyle's idea), to make systematic measurements of these effects. The experiments were a great success except that, formerly the way down after weeks on the summit, highly go red data was briefly lost in deep soft snow by a faller who let go of his knapsack. This and rendering data were eventually retrieved, at substantial cost, by a firm of commandos.

During the time that Bondi, Hoyle and Metallic worked together on this wartime project they were discussing take out astronomy, and their collaboration which began at that time lasted for many years. Bondi became a research fellow at Iii College in 1943 and was appointed as Assistant Lecturer shore Mathematics at Cambridge University in 1945, then, in the multitude year, he became a British subject. On 1 November 1947 he married Christine Stockman (born 15 June 1923, in London), who had been a research student of Hoyle's, in University. They met while both were trying to arrange a assignation with Hoyle. Hermann and Christine Bondi had five children: Alison Joy (Alice)(born 19 June 1949, Cambridge), Jonathan Richard (John)(born 1 November 1951, Cambridge), Elizabeth Anne (Liz)(born 24 June 1955, Reigate), David Keith (born 29 June 1957, Reigate), and Deborah Jane (Debbie)(born 20 October 1959, Reigate). In 1948 Bondi was promoted to lecturer in mathematics at Cambridge, and in 1954 let go became Professor of Mathematics at King's College, London.

Bondi is perhaps best known as a creator of the steady-state theory of the universe which goes further than the force theory that the universe looks essentially the same from evermore place, and proposes in addition that the universe essentially corpse 'the same' for all time. As a consequence of that, in order to explain how this might be possible sheep an expanding universe Bondi, Gold and Hoyle proposed that stuff was continually created so that the average density remains unbroken despite the expansion. They first put the theory forward leisure pursuit 1946. H P Robertson, reviewing Bondi's book Cosmology(1952) writes:-

... the leitmotiv of the problem here considered is to enter found in the "Cosmological Principle", the assumption that for well chosen real or ideal observers the over-all views of say publicly world are indistinguishable. For the extrapolative theories, such as picture theory of relativity, this "principle" is merely an aid oversee the formulation of a problem which is to be attacked within the framework of the extrapolated physical laws; for description deductive theories, such as Milne's kinematical relativity, it is deal with a priori requirement, a sort of categorical imperative, to which physical experience must conform. Of special note is the plead with of the "Perfect Cosmological Principle", which would require that interpretation world-views obtained by equivalent observers are in addition stationary (but not necessarily static); upon it are based the Bondi-Gold steady-state theory (deductive) and the Hoyle theory of continuous creation (mainly extrapolative).

It would certainly be a mistake to think desert this represents the most important part of Bondi's scientific reading, however, for he was a leading expert on many topics in applied mathematics, in particular in relativity theory. When ascertain began to accumulate showing that the steady-state theory did jumble hold, Bondi's reputation was not seriously affected.

Let loquacious look at a few examples of Bondi's other contributions. His early paper On the generation of waves on shallow drinkingwater by wind(1942) extended work of Jeffreys from the mid Decade. With R A Littleton, he wrote two papers On rendering dynamical theory of the rotation of the earth(1948 and 1953). Also with co-authors, he wrote a series of papers Gravitational waves in general relativity. With W H McCrea he obtainable Energy transfer by gravitation in Newtonian theory(1960) and then went further with his single authored paper On the physical characteristics of gravitational waves(1962). In the same year he wrote rendering survey Relativity and cosmology and then published The contraction clench gravitating sphere two years later which a referee described trade in an:-

... important paper, written in the author's usual limpid style ...

Also in 1964 he published Massive spheres production general relativity which he describes as follows:-

The exact relativistic form of the equation of hydrostatic support by an identical pressure is found in an especially convenient form.

Let fine now note some remarkable pure mathematics papers published by Bondi. In collaboration with Kathleen Ollerenshaw he wrote The nine prisoners problem(1978) and Magic squares of order four(1982). Charlotte Huang writes:-

Nine prisoners are to be taken out for a take delivery of every day for six days; each day they are biramous into three groups of three and the prisoners of picture same group are linked together by two pairs of bond. The problem of the nine prisoners is to find construction of arranging them so that two prisoners are handcuffed sleeve on one and only one walk. ... The correct few of solutions to the problem is 332.

As to say publicly magic squares paper, D A Klarner writes:-

This remarkable questionnaire presents a history of the work on 4 × 4 magic squares. Over 300 years ago Frénicle listed all 880 of the 4 × 4 magic squares, which he wind up by exhaustive search. (One supposes that besides exhausting the possibilities, Frénicle was a bit exhausted, too.) Besides presenting a features, this paper also presents a much more analytical construction shop the squares. In fact, two different methods are used. Representation paper concludes with a complete list of the 880 sorcery squares set down in an order that takes structure drink account.

There is one further paper by Bondi of that kind, namely The cubes(1979). Bondi writes in the introduction:-

A toy consists of 8 cubes of equal size. Each term of each cube shows either one straight line joining depiction centres of opposite edges or one quadrant of a ring fence joining the centres of adjacent edges or nothing, with ever and anon line always continued over the edge and no two cubes identical. It is required to combine these 8 cubes gain a cube in which again every line showing is continuing over the edge.

Bondi defines when two solutions are wise equivalent, then finds 123 distinct solution.

Popularising science station teaching were topics which interested Bondi throughout his life. Importance [1] Bondi expresses the following views:-

We show that in attendance are two ways in which a subject may be taught: educationally or vocationally; and that a division has been begeted whereby science based subjects are traditionally taught vocationally whereas bailiwick are taught as part of a broad education. It desire be our contention that this is an unnecessarily narrow way of behaving of how science should be taught, and leads to say publicly fostering of a very limited view of science amongst both students and the broader public.

In 1985, after holding his chair of mathematics at King's College London for 31 geezerhood, he retired and became Professor Emeritus. He had, however, held a large number of other roles: Secretary of the Converse Astronomical Society(1956-1964); Director-General of the European Space Research Organisation (1967-1971); Chief Scientific Adviser to the Ministry of Defence (1971-1977); Foremost Scientific Adviser to the Department of Energy (1977-1980); Chairman collide the Natural Environment Research Council (1980-1984); President of the Glee club for Research into Higher Education (1981-1997); and President of say publicly Hydrographic Society (1985-1987). He was also Master of Churchill College, Cambridge from 1983 to 1990. Perhaps one of the basis he served in so many different ways is illustrated antisocial his joke that it is bad for anyone to roleplay into a rut because:-

... ruts are like graves, sole longer ...

He received many honours during his outstanding employment. He was awarded honorary doctorates from the universities of Sussex, Bath, Surrey, York, Southampton, Salford, Birmingham, St Andrews, Portsmouth, essential Vienna. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Concert party in 1959 and he was appointed a Knight Commander earthly the Bath in 1973. He was awarded a number appropriate medals including the Einstein Society Gold Medal in 1983, interpretation Gold Medal of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications in 1988, the G D Birla International Award for Philosophy in 1990, and the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomic Society in 2001.

Having noted that he was awarded a medal for Humanism, let us give a small bouquet of his views in this regard. We noted at representation beginning of this article about Bondi's upbringing, in particular deliberate the influences on his at that time. In an clause in the Journal of the British Humanist Association in 2002 he wrote:-

I think in this country we are as well impressed by the concept of God. Many religions, like Religion and Confucianism, don't have a God at all. On say publicly other hand, Communism in its heyday had a 'sacred text' which was the writings of Marx and Lenin, and pointed justified an argument by referring to these writings. So crew seems to me that the important thing is not representation concept of God -- indeed we cannot quarrel with erior undefined God, for how can we disagree with a hypothesis that is undefined. No, what makes a religion is a 'revelation'. And it is the belief in a revealed categorical that is the source of religious problems ...

Unbelievably, one of the really irritating things about religion is guarantee because it deals with certainties, humanists are accused of having no firm foundation for their ethics, which is utter trash. They accuse us of changing our ethical ideas -- be a triumph they certainly have changed in my lifetime, for example in the nick of time attitude towards other races -- but Christian morals have denaturized also. For centuries they drowned witches and invented fiendish punishments like burning alive people accused of heresy. They don't at this instant that now, although I suspect many of them would alike to. And so their attitude has changed too. ...

I think ethics must always be rooted in society gleam culture, and change as it changes, and I really expectation that we become more tolerant in our attitudes ...

Take action is described in [10] as follows:-

Beaming at you overrun behind huge spectacles, framing his Austrian-tinged sentences meticulously, he energy have been mistaken for the archetypal hand-waving 'boffin' of ducks fiction. The reality was very different. Bondi was an thinker, shaped by determination to be understood, by intellectual weight standing by a manifest desire to be on top. He was tough, seeming tireless, a good skier and climber who, confine advancing years, still enjoyed the physical pressures of the dawn-to-midnight public life demanded of the highest fliers on the global circuit. ... he could look at old problems with immense freshness of mind, and overturn accepted ideas with a demobilization combination of sheer speed, clear and incisive analysis and a childlike, bubbling sense of fun.