Martin Rees Explained

Honorific-Prefix:The Right Honourable
The Lord Rees of Ludlow
President of the Royal Society
Order:60th
Term Start:2005
Term End:2010
Predecessor:The Lord May of Oxford
Successor:Paul Nurse
Title2:President of the Royal Astronomical Society
Order2:78th
Term Start2:1992
Term End2:1994
Predecessor2:Ken Pounds
Successor2:Carole Jordan
Title3:Master of Trinity College, Cambridge
Order3:39th
Term Start3:2004
Term End3:2012
Predecessor3:Amartya Sen
Successor3:Sir Gregory Winter
Title4:Member of the House of Lords
Lord Temporal
Term Start4:6 September 2005
Life Peerage
Birth Date:1942 6, df=yes
Birth Place:York, England
Party:None (crossbencher)
Module:
Embed:yes
Field:Astronomy
Astrophysics
Work Institution:University of Cambridge
University of Sussex
Education:Shrewsbury School
Alma Mater:Trinity College, Cambridge (BA, PhD)
Thesis Title:Physical processes in radio sources and inter-galactic medium
Thesis Year:1967
Thesis Url:http://copac.jisc.ac.uk/id/6118741?style=html
Doctoral Advisor:Dennis Sciama
Known For:Rees–Sciama effect
21-cm cosmology
Coining particle chauvinism
Prizes:Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics (1984)
Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1987)
Balzan Prize (1989)
Bower Award (1998)
Gruber Prize in Cosmology (2001)
Albert Einstein World Award of Science (2003)
Michael Faraday Prize (2004)
Crafoord Prize (2005)
Order of Merit (2007)
Templeton Prize (2011)
Isaac Newton Medal (2012)
Dalton Medal (2012)
HonFREng (2007)
Nierenberg Prize (2015)
Fritz Zwicky Prize (2020)
Copley Medal (2023)
Wolf Prize in Physics (2024)

Martin John Rees, Baron Rees of Ludlow, [1] [2] (born 23 June 1942) is a British cosmologist and astrophysicist.[3] He is the fifteenth Astronomer Royal, appointed in 1995,[4] [5] and was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, from 2004 to 2012 and President of the Royal Society between 2005 and 2010.[6] [7] [8] He has received various physics awards including the Wolf Prize in Physics in 2024.

Education and early life

Rees was born on 23 June 1942 in York, England.[9] [10] After a peripatetic life during the war his parents, both teachers, settled with Rees, an only child, in a rural part of Shropshire near the border with Wales. There, his parents founded Bedstone College, a boarding school based on progressive educational concepts.[11] He was educated at Bedstone College, then from the age of 13 at Shrewsbury School. He studied for the mathematical tripos at Trinity College, Cambridge,[9] graduating with first class honours. He then undertook post-graduate research at Cambridge and completed a PhD supervised by Dennis Sciama in 1967.[12] [13] Rees' post-graduate work in astrophysics in the mid-1960s coincided with an explosion of new discoveries, with breakthroughs ranging from confirmation of the Big Bang, the discovery of neutron stars and black holes, and a host of other revelations.[11]

Career and research

After holding postdoctoral research positions in the United Kingdom and the United States, he was a professor at Sussex University, during 1972–1973. He later moved to Cambridge, where he was the Plumian Professor at the University of Cambridge until 1991, and the director of the Institute of Astronomy.

He was professor of astronomy at Gresham College, London, in 1975 and became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1979. From 1992 to 2003, he was Royal Society Research Professor, and from 2003 Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics. He was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, during 2004–2012. He is an Honorary Fellow of Darwin College,[14] King's College,[15] Clare Hall,[16] Robinson College and Jesus College, Cambridge.[17]

Rees is the author of more than 500 research papers, and he has made contributions to the origin of cosmic microwave background radiation, as well as to galaxy clustering and formation. His studies of the distribution of quasars led to final disproof of steady state theory.

He was one of the first to propose that enormous black holes power quasars,[18] and that superluminal astronomical observations can be explained as an optical illusion caused by an object moving partly in the direction of the observer.[19]

Since the 1990s, Rees has worked on gamma-ray bursts, especially in collaboration with Péter Mészáros,[20] and on how the "cosmic dark ages" ended when the first stars formed. Since the 1970s he has been interested in anthropic reasoning, and the possibility that our visible universe is part of a vaster "multiverse".[21] [22]

Rees is an author of books on astronomy and science intended for the lay public and gives many public lectures and broadcasts. In 2010 he was invited to deliver the Reith Lectures for the BBC,[23] now published as From Here to Infinity: Scientific Horizons. Rees thinks the search for extraterrestrial intelligence is worthwhile and has chaired the advisory board for the "Breakthrough Listen" project, a programme of SETI investigations funded by the Russian/US investor Yuri Milner.[24]

In addition to expansion of his scientific interests, Rees has written and spoken extensively about the problems and challenges of the 21st century, and interfaces between science, ethics, and politics.[25] [26] [27] [28] He is a member of the Board of the Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton and the Oxford Martin School. He co-founded the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk[29] and serves on the Scientific Advisory Board for the Future of Life Institute. He has formerly been a Trustee of the British Museum, the Science Museum, the Gates Cambridge Trust and the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR).

In 2007, he delivered the Gifford Lectures on 21st Century Science: Cosmic Perspective and Terrestrial Challenges at the University of St Andrews.[30]

In August 2014, Rees was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian expressing their hope that Scotland would vote to remain part of the United Kingdom in September's referendum on that issue.[31]

In 2015, he was co-author of the report that launched the Global Apollo Programme, which calls for developed nations to commit to spending 0.02% of their GDP for 10 years, to fund coordinated research to make carbon-free baseload electricity less costly than electricity from coal by the year 2025.[32]

His doctoral students have included Roger Blandford, Craig Hogan, Nick Kaiser[33] Priyamvada Natarajan, and James E. Pringle.

To mark the 300th anniversary of the Board of Longitude in 2014, he instigated a programme of new challenge prizes of £5-10m under the name 'Longitude Prize 2014', which are administered by Nesta and for which he chairs the advisory board. The themes of the first two prizes are the reduction of inappropriate antibiotic use, and enhancing the safety and independence of dementia sufferers. The Longitude Prize on Dementia was recently announced in 2022. In his general writings and in the House of Lords his focus has been on the uses and abuses of advanced technology and on issues such as assisted dying, preservation of dark skies, and reforms to broaden the post-16 and undergraduate curricula in the UK.[34] He is also a current member of the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee.[35]

Selected bibliography

Honours and awards

He has been president of the Royal Astronomical Society (1992–94) and the British Science Association (1995–96), and was a Member of Council of the Royal Institution of Great Britain until 2010. Rees has received honorary degrees from a number of universities including Hull, Sussex, Uppsala, Toronto, Durham, Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, Melbourne and Sydney. He belongs to several foreign academies, including the US National Academy of Sciences, the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences,[36] the Science Academy of Turkey[37] and the Japan Academy. He became president of the Royal Society on 1 December 2005[38] [39] and continued until the end of the Society's 350th Anniversary Celebrations in 2010. In 2011, he was awarded the Templeton Prize.[40] In 2005, Rees was elevated to a life peerage, sitting as a crossbencher in the House of Lords as Baron Rees of Ludlow, of Ludlow in the County of Shropshire.[41] [42] In 2005, he was awarded the Crafoord Prize.[43] Other awards and honours include:

The Asteroid 4587 Rees and the Sir Martin Rees Academic Scholarship at Shrewsbury International School are named in his honour.

In June 2022, to celebrate his 80th birthday, Rees was the subject of the BBC programme The Sky at Night, in conversation with Professor Chris Lintott.[56]

Personal life

Rees married the anthropologist Caroline Humphrey in 1986.[9] He is an atheist but has criticized militant atheists for being too hostile to religion.[57] [58] [59] Rees is a lifelong supporter of the Labour Party, but has no party affiliation when sitting in the House of Lords.[60] [61]

See also

Notes and References

  1. Web site: The Lord Rees of Ludlow OM Kt HonFREng FRS. Anon. 2015. royalsociety. Royal Society. https://web.archive.org/web/20151117024550/https://royalsociety.org/people/martin-rees-12156/. 17 November 2015. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where:
  2. Web site: List of Fellows. raeng.org.uk. 29 October 2014. 8 June 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20160608094405/http://www.raeng.org.uk/about-us/people-council-committees/the-fellowship/list-of-fellows. dead.
  3. Rees . Martin J. . Cosmology and High-Energy Astrophysics: A 50-Year Perspective on Personalities, Progress, and Prospects . Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics . 18 August 2022 . 60 . 1 . 1–30 . 10.1146/annurev-astro-111021-084639 . 2022ARA&A..60....1R . 248066390 . 19 August 2022 . en . 0066-4146.
  4. Web site: Portraits of Astronomers Royal. rmg.co.uk. Royal Museums Greenwich. 18 February 2015. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20150104225904/http://www.rmg.co.uk/explore/astronomy-and-time/astronomy-facts/history/portraits-of-the-astronomers-royal. 4 January 2015.
  5. Web site: Astronomer Royal. https://web.archive.org/web/20160308012357/http://www.royal.gov.uk/TheRoyalHousehold/OfficialRoyalposts/AstronomerRoyal.aspx. 8 March 2016. The British Monarchy. . dead. 23 June 2017.
  6. Web site: 2005 talk: Is this our final century?. ted.com. accessed 31 August 2014
  7. Web site: Interviews with Charlie Rose, 2003 and 2008. charlierose.com. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20100128020501/http://www.charlierose.com/guest/view/1729. 28 January 2010. accessed 31 August 2014
  8. Web site: New Statesman Interviews Martin Rees. newstatesman.com. New Statesman. 2010. Anon. accessed 31 August 2014
  9. Anon (2017)
  10. GRO Register of Births: SEP 1942 9c 1465 YORK – Martin J. Rees, mmn=Bett
  11. Web site: Templeton Prize Winners – Discover Laureates From 1973 to Today. Templeton Prize.
  12. PhD. Martin. Rees. Physical Processes in Radio Sources and the Intergalactic Medium. University of Cambridge. 1967. copac.jisc.ac.uk. 30 October 2017. 13 June 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20180613184309/https://copac.jisc.ac.uk/id/6118741?style=html. dead.
  13. Web site: Inventory: Martin Rees. https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221210221216/https://www.ft.com/content/7c844532-b80b-11e0-8868-00144feabdc0#axzz2IdKRAN00. 10 December 2022. subscription. live. Financial Times. 2014. 31 August 2014.
  14. Web site: Master & fellows. Darwin College Cambridge. 19 February 2018.
  15. Web site: Honorary Fellows. www.kings.cam.ac.uk. en. 15 March 2018.
  16. Web site: Honorary Fellow Clare Hall. www.clarehall.cam.ac.uk. en. 15 March 2018.
  17. Web site: Honorary and St Radegund Fellows. Jesus College Cambridge. 19 February 2018.
  18. Rees. M.J.. 10.1146/annurev.aa.22.090184.002351. Black Hole Models for Active Galactic Nuclei. Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics. 22. 471–506. 1984. 1984ARA&A..22..471R.
  19. Rees. M.J.. Appearance of Relativistically Expanding Radio Sources. 10.1038/211468a0. Nature. 211. 5048. 468–70. 1966. 1966Natur.211..468R. 41065207.
  20. Tidal heating and mass loss in neutron star binaries – Implications for gamma-ray burst models. P.. Meszaros. M. J.. Rees. 1992. 10. 570. Astrophysical Journal. 397. 1992ApJ...397..570M. 10.1086/171813.
  21. The anthropic principle and the structure of the physical world. B. J.. Carr. M. J.. Rees. 1979. 5705. 605–612. Nature. 278. 10.1038/278605a0. 1979Natur.278..605C. 4363262.
  22. Book: Before the Beginning: Our Universe and Others . Martin J. Rees . Perseus Books . 1997 . 978-0-7382-0033-0.
  23. Web site: BBC Radio 4 – The Reith Lectures, Martin Rees – Scientific Horizons, The Scientific Citizen. 16 March 2023. BBC. en-GB.
  24. http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2010/02/cosmic-man/ Interview with Paul Broks
  25. Web site: Martin Rees Biography and Interview . www.achievement.org. American Academy of Achievement.
  26. News: Rees. Martin. 9 June 2006. Dark materials. en-GB. The Guardian. 16 March 2023. 0261-3077.
  27. http://www.21school.ox.ac.uk/downloads/podcasts/200902_rees.mp3 Podcast of Lecture "The World in 2050"
  28. News: Astronomer Royal Martin Rees: How soon will robots take over the world?. Rees. Martin. The Telegraph. 23 May 2015. 23 June 2019. en-GB. 0307-1235.
  29. News: Humanity's last invention and our uncertain future. Lewsey. Fred. 25 November 2012. Research News. University of Cambridge. 28 January 2013.
  30. Web site: The St Andrews Gifford Lectures . st-andrews.ac.uk . University of St Andrews.
  31. News: Celebrities' open letter to Scotland – full text and list of signatories . The Guardian . London . 7 August 2014 . 26 August 2014.
  32. News: Carrington. Damian. Global Apollo programme seeks to make clean energy cheaper than coal. 2 June 2015. The Guardian. 2 June 2015. Guardian News Media.
  33. Web site: Nick Kaiser Higgs Centre for Theoretical Physics. higgs.ph.ed.ac.uk. 7 August 2014 . en. 15 March 2018.
  34. https://members.parliament.uk/member/3751/contributions
  35. https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/193/science-and-technology-committee-lords/membership/
  36. Web site: M.J. Rees. https://web.archive.org/web/20160214092416/https://www.knaw.nl/en/members/foreign-members/4688. Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. 14 February 2016. 14 February 2016.
  37. Web site: Foreign Honorary Members. Bilim Akademisi. https://web.archive.org/web/20150106184357/http://en.bilimakademisi.org/uyeler/foreign-honorary-members-of-the-science-academy/. 6 January 2015. dead. 31 August 2014.
  38. News: 29 March 2005. Rees tipped to head science body. en-GB. BBC News . 16 March 2023.
  39. http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/news.asp?id=3022 Martin Rees nominated for presidency of the Royal Society
  40. News: Sample. Ian. correspondent. science. 6 April 2011. Martin Rees wins controversial £1m Templeton prize. en-GB. The Guardian. 16 March 2023. 0261-3077.
  41. News: State: Crown Office . . 57753 . 11653 . 9 September 2005 . 5 January 2020.
  42. http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/dp/2005080101 Sir Martin Rees appointed to the House of Lords
  43. http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/dp/2005020801 Professor Sir Martin Rees wins Crafoord Prize
  44. Web site: Martin John Rees. American Academy of Arts & Sciences. 7 August 2023 .
  45. Web site: Martin J. Rees. www.nasonline.org.
  46. Web site: APS Member History .
  47. Web site: Honorary doctorates – Uppsala University, Sweden. www.uu.se. 9 June 2023 .
  48. Web site: Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement . www.achievement.org. American Academy of Achievement.
  49. Web site: Albert Einstein World Award of Science 2003. 13 August 2013. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20140607001523/http://www.consejoculturalmundial.org/winners-science-martinrees.php. 7 June 2014.
  50. Cressey. Daniel. 2011. Martin Rees takes Templeton Prize. Nature. en. 10.1038/news.2011.208.
  51. Web site: ICTP - The Medallists. www.ictp.it.
  52. Web site: European Astronomical Society 2020 prizes . 6 March 2020 . European Astronomical Society . 6 March 2020.
  53. Web site: AAS Fellows. AAS. 30 September 2020.
  54. https://royalsociety.org/grants-schemes-awards/awards/copley-medal/ Copley Medal 2023
  55. Web site: Martin Rees Wolf Prize Laureate in Physics 2024. Wolf Prize. 20 August 2024.
  56. Web site: BBC Four – The Sky at Night, The Astronomer Royal at 80. BBC.
  57. Web site: Templeton Report: Martin J. Rees Wins 2011 Templeton Prize. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20160303194123/http://www.templeton.org/templeton_report/20110420/index.html. 3 March 2016.
  58. Web site: Martin Rees: I've got no religious beliefs at all – interview. Ian. Sample. . 6 April 2011.
  59. News: Can humanity survive the future? . Rees, while stating he is an atheist, declares that he shares a sense of "mystery" with those who believe in God. . Financial Times . October 2018 . https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221210/https://www.ft.com/content/3ebb3122-cb11-11e8-8d0b-a6539b949662 . 10 December 2022 . live . subscription . 5 January 2020.
  60. News: Martin Rees: 'We shouldn't attach any weight to what Hawking says . 20 February 2020 . The Independent . 27 September 2010 . en.
  61. News: Radford . Tim . Guardian profile: Martin Rees . 20 February 2020 . The Guardian . 2 December 2005.

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