Hermann Bondi
From Philosopedia
Bondi, Hermann [Sir] KCB, FRS (1 Novmber 1919 - 10 September 2005)
Bondi, the son of a physician and a distant relative of Abraham Frankel, was raised in Vienna. He arrived in Cambridge in 1937, escaping Austria's anti-semitism. His parents fled to Switzerland, later settling in New York. Although his parents were Jewish, he went on record as never having "felt the need for religion."
In the early years of World War II, Bondi was interned as an enemy alien on the Isle of Man and in Canada. From 1945 to 1954 he lectured in mathematics at the University of Cambridge, and iIn 1946 he became a British subject.
In 1948, together with Fred Hoyle and Thomas Gold, he advanced the cosmological theory known to relativists as the Lemaitre-Tolman-Bondi solution about the steady-state universe - e.g., the universe has always existed - on the whole now replaced with the Big Bang Theory inasmuch as steady-state did not account for microwave background radiation. The big-bang concept now favored holds that the Universe's total matter and energy were created from a minute particle of unimaginable densit and temperature that exploded at a definite moment in the past.
He then pioneered work on black holes. His thesis was that the gravitational pull of a black hole builds up gas in its vicinity, and this led to a mathematical exercise by scientist Stephen Hawking, who suggested that radiation can emerge from these mysterious objects.
Bondi also led a successful career as a science administrator - he administered the running of the European Space Research Organisation for four years and spent six years as chief scientist to the UK Ministry of Defence.
In 1947, Bondi married Christine Stockman, a physicist and one of Hoyle's research students. Like him she went on to be active in the humanist movement. Together, they had two sons and three daughters.
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Associations
A Fellow of the Royal Society and a past Master of Churchill College, Cambridge University, he was a founder of the British Humanist Association. He became President of the Rationalist Press Association. Bondi was elected an honorary associate of the Rationalist Press Association in 1967. He is a Humanist Laureate in the Council for Secular Humanism’s International Academy of Humanism and an honorary associate of the New Zealand Association of Rationalists and Humanists. Also, Bondi was a Vice-President of the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association (GALHA).
Other Work
Bondi was also active outside the confines of academic lecturing and research. He held many positions:
- Director-General of the European Space Research Organisation (ESRO)(1967–1971) (which later became the European Space Agency, ESA)
- Chief Scientific Adviser to the Ministry of Defence (1971-1977)
- Chief Scientific Adviser to the Department of Energy (1977–1980)
- Chairman of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) (1980–1984)
- President of the Society for Research into Higher Education (1981–1997)
- President of the Hydrographic Society (1985–1987)
- Master of Churchill College, Cambridge (1983–1990).
- He became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1959 and was appointed a Knight Commander of the Bath in 1973.
- He was awarded the Einstein Society Gold Medal in 1983, the Gold Medal of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications in 1988, the G.D. Birla International Award for Humanism, and the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 2001.
Bondi in Print
In 1986, he read a paper at the Ninth International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) World Congress held in Oslo.
In “A Non-believer Looks at Physics” (New Humanist, December 1990), he discusses other physicists’ ideas and compares their views with his own on the subject of the compatibility of religion and science. He writes,
- When people ask me whether I am an atheist, I say that I cannot answer this question without a definition of God. To disbelieve in a Supreme Being gives it just about as much shape and context as to believe in it. If people tell me, as some do, that God is nature, I certainly do not disbelieve in nature. If people tell me that God is love, I certainly do not disbelieve in love. Tell me who your God is and then, and only then, can I say whether I disbelieve. If it is a God who has revealed himself and you firmly believe in that revelation, then my disbelief sets in. It is as an anti-revelationist, rather than as an atheist, that I would wish to be known.
The Times Higher Education Supplement (18 September 1987) quoted Bondi in a witty discussion with Bishop John Robinson as follows:
- “God,” said Bondi to Robinson, “was recently applying for a grant from a scientific institution to study the origins of Creation. It was declined on three grounds: first that there was no visible evidence that He had done any work on the subject for a long time; second because no one had been able to replicate the experiment; and third because the only records of it had not been published in any recognized scientific journal.”
In 1992, he was extensively interviewed by Free Inquiry (Spring 1992). Also in 1992, his 67th Conway Memorial Lecture, “Humanism: The Only Valid Foundation of Ethics” (South Place Ethical Society), was published. In it, he states that “the morality of every religion is bad” and can be no valid foundation for ethics.
In 1993, the former chief scientist of the British Defense Ministry wrote to Nature that inasmuch as the world’s major religions contradict each other, “a huge number of believers must be wrong. The variety of religions is a calamitously divisive force in human affairs. The less this factor is brought in, the better for all. This is especially incumbent on those working in a universal and global enterprise as science is.” Predictably, his observation resulted in an avalanche of reader responses.
In a 1995 address at a Spanish humanist congress, Bondi spoke on “Science, Morality, and Humanism.” He explained what he felt is the essential difference between “us humanists” and adherents of the many varieties of religion. First, “we are all struck with awe and wonder when we contemplate the universe around us, whether we think of the depths of space in astronomy, or of the incredible complexity of even the simplest forms of life, or of the structure of mountains, or of ecology, or of the intricate web of human relationships.” Some, however, “feel that all this wondrous world must have a designer, an architect, but one with no particular interest in humans, let alone in individuals. This was for example the view of Albert Einstein.” Then there “are some who, while broadly agreeing with this view, have the ill-defined feelings (or hope) that this super-intelligence might have some concern for us. Some Quakers and some Unitarians take this attitude.”
The place where humanists differ, Bondi stated, is in not agreeing with the view “that there exists some special ‘revelation,’ a particular form of firm and certain knowledge . . . whether this revelation is in the Gospels or the Qur’an or the Hindu Vedas or the Torah or the thoughts of Buddha or of Mao, etc. Such a revelation is the basis of virtually every religion. In the name of such a ‘superhuman’ (I would like to call it anti-human), certainly the most horrendous and repulsive deeds have been performed which stain human history. Therefore I am above all an ‘anti-revelationist.’ ”
The revelationists, he lamented, regard all other religions (which of course contradict theirs) as false. Thus, “a vast number of sincere believers must be wrong. Since each of the religions has adherents of the highest intelligence and integrity, the conclusion is inescapable that it is in the nature of the human mind to be likely to be in error on religious matters. Any believers who are unaware of this fact are extraordinarily arrogant and in fact deny the common humanity of those who hold a different revelation to be true.” Bondi’s hope, he told the Spanish humanists, is that humanists, although modest in size, will continue to help transform the climate of opinion and make our world more humane and less intolerant.
In 1996, speaking at the fourth World Atheist Conference in India, Bondi compared the positive attitude of atheists with the arrogance of religion:
- Though we are a minority with a small voice,” he said, “our power of reason and persuasion is great. . . . We must reason with the religious and bring our positive values even to those who are stubborn in their delusions. To be human means to be in co-operation with others. We must value our neighbours across all categories. Yet we must stand up for our non-belief - the positive work of the Atheist Centre is a splendid example.
He often emphasized the importance of nonbelievers' asserting their views openly, and he looked forward to the time when it will not be respectable to be religious.
Later Years
Bondi suffered from Parkinson's disease for several years. He died in Cambridge. On 19 September 2005, his funeral was held at the West Chapel of Cambridge Crematorium, England. Daughters Liz and Alice and son David gave affectionate and amusing tributes that told of their father's being a family man, the teller of ludicrous jokes, a lover of puns and spoonerisms.
Science, Churchill and Me: The Autobiography of Hermann Bondi (1990) includes how at the age of eighteen he arranged his parents’ escape from Hitler’s Germany.
(See entry for Anti-Revelationism.)
{CL; The Free Mind, February 1996; HM2; International Humanist News, June 1995}
