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Register a new userDonald Lynden-Bell: A Biographical Memoir
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N. W. Evans
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Donald Lynden-Bells many contributions to astrophysics encompass general relativity, galactic dynamics, telescope design and observational astronomy. In the 1960s, his papers on stellar dynamics led to fundamental insights into the equilibria of elliptical galaxies, the growth of spiral patterns in disc galaxies and the stability of differentially rotating, self-gravitating flows. Donald introduced the ideas of `violent relaxation and `the gravothermal catastrophe in pioneering work on the thermodynamics of galaxies and negative heat capacities. He shared the inaugural Kavli Prize in Astrophysics in 2008 for his contributions to our understanding of quasars. His prediction that dead quasars or supermassive black holes may reside in the nuclei of nearby galaxies has been confirmed by multiple pieces of independent evidence. His work on accretion discs led to new insights into their workings, as well as the realisation that the infrared excess in T Tauri stars was caused by protostellar discs around these young stars. He introduced the influential idea of monolithic collapse of a gas cloud as a formation mechanism for the Milky Way Galaxy. As this gave way to modern ideas of merging and accretion as drivers of galaxy formation, Donald was the first to realise the importance of tidal streams as measures of the past history and present day gravity field of the Galaxy. Though primarily a theorist, Donald participated in one of the first observational programs to measure the large-scale streaming of nearby galaxies. This led to the discovery of the `Great Attractor. The depth and versatility of his contributions mark Donald out as one of the most influential and pre-eminent astronomers of his day.
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Stephen Hawkings contributions to the understanding of gravity, black holes and cosmology were truly immense. They began with the singularity theorems in the 1960s followed by his discovery that black holes have an entropy and consequently a finite temperature. Black holes were predicted to emit thermal radiation, what is now called Hawking radiation. He pioneered the study of primordial black holes and their potential role in cosmology. His organisation of and contributions to the Nuffield Workshop in 1982 consolidated the picture that the large-scale structure of the universe originated as quantum fluctuations during the inflationary era. Work on the interplay between quantum mechanics and general relativity resulted in his formulation of the concept of the wavefunction of the universe. The tension between quantum mechanics and general relativity led to his struggles with the information paradox concerning deep connections between these fundamental areas of physics. These achievements were all accomplished following the diagnosis during the early years of Stephens studies as a post-graduate student in Cambridge that he had incurable motor neuron disease -- he was given two years to live. Against all the odds, he lived a further 55 years. The distinction of his work led to many honours and he became a major public figure, promoting with passion the needs of disabled people. His popular best-selling book A Brief History of Time made cosmology and his own work known to the general public worldwide. He became an icon for science and an inspiration to all.
Stirling Colgate was a remarkably imaginative physicist, an independent thinker with a wide breadth of interests and contagious enthusiasm, a born leader with enduring drive to attack fundamental problems in science. Among his many achievements, he founded the quantitative theory of stellar collapse and supernova explosions, and introduced numerical simulation into the astrophysical toolbox. He brought strong physical intuition to both theory and experiment, in the sciences of nuclear weapons, magnetic and inertial fusion, as well as astrophysics.
Julian Besag was an outstanding statistical scientist, distinguished for his pioneering work on the statistical theory and analysis of spatial processes, especially conditional lattice systems. His work has been seminal in statistical developments over the last several decades ranging from image analysis to Markov chain Monte Carlo methods. He clarified the role of auto-logistic and auto-normal models as instances of Markov random fields and paved the way for their use in diverse applications. Later work included investigations into the efficacy of nearest neighbour models to accommodate spatial dependence in the analysis of data from agricultural field trials, image restoration from noisy data, and texture generation using lattice models.
I review the history and development of Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) beginning with the phenomenological basis as it existed in the early 1980s. I consider Milgroms papers of 1983 introducing the idea and its consequences for galaxies and galaxy groups, as well as the initial reactions, both negative and positive. The early criticisms were primarily on matters of principle, such as the absence of conservation laws and perceived cosmological problems; an important step in addressing these issues was the development of the Lagrangian-based non-relativistic theory of Bekenstein and Milgrom. This theory led to the development of a tentative relativistic theory that formed the basis for later multi-field theories of gravity. On an empirical level the predictive success of the idea with respect to the phenomenology of galaxies presents considerable challenges for cold dark matter. For MOND the essential challenge remains the absence of a generally accepted theoretical underpinning of the idea and, thus, cosmological predictions. I briefly review recent progress in this direction. Finally I discuss the role and sociology of unconventional ideas in astronomy in the presence of a strongly entrenched standard paradigm.
Allan Sandage was an observational astronomer who was happiest at a telescope. On Hubbles sudden death Allan Sandage inherited the programmes using the worlds largest optical telescope at Palomar to determine the distances and number counts of galaxies. Over many years he greatly revised the distance scale and, on re-working Hubbles analysis, discovered the error that had led Hubble to doubt the interpretation of the galaxies redshifts as an expansion of the universe. Sandage showed that there was a consistent age of Creation for the stars, the elements, and the Cosmos. Through work with Baade and Schwarzschild he discovered the key to the interpretation of the colour-magnitude diagrams of star clusters in terms of stellar evolution. With others he founded Galactic Archaeology, interpreting the motions and elemental abundances of the oldest stars in terms of a model for the Galaxys formation. He published several fine atlasses and catalogues of galaxies and a definitive history of the Mount Wilson Observatory.
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