Hermann Bondi

Sir Hermann Bondi KCB FRS (1 November 1919 – 10 September 2005) was an Austrian-British mathematician and cosmologist. He is 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. He contributed to the theory of general relativity and was the first to analyze the inertial and gravitational interaction of negative mass and the first to correctly explicate the nature of gravitational waves. In his 1990 autobiography, Bondi regarded the 1962 work on gravitational waves as his 'best scientific work'. Bondi was born in Vienna and showed prodigious mathematical ability from a young age. He moved to England in 1937 to study at Trinity College, Cambridge, escaping antisemitism. During World War II, he was interned but later released to work on radar. After the war, he lectured at Cambridge before moving to King's College London. He became a professor there in 1954. Bondi was also active in public service, holding positions such as Director-General of ESRO, Chief Scientific Adviser to the Ministry of Defence and Department of Energy, and Chairman of the Natural Environment Research Council. He was a lifelong humanist and served as president of the British Humanist Association and the Rationalist Press Association. He married Christine Stockman, also a mathematician, and they had five children.