Martin Rees

The Right Honourable The Lord Rees of Ludlow OM FRS HonFREng FMedSci FRAS HonFInstP
Official portrait, 2019
60th President of the Royal Society
In office 2005–2010
Preceded by	The Lord May of Oxford
Succeeded by	Paul Nurse
78th President of the Royal Astronomical Society
In office 1992–1994
Preceded by	Ken Pounds
Succeeded by	Carole Jordan
39th Master of Trinity College, Cambridge
In office 2004–2012
Preceded by	Amartya Sen
Succeeded by	Sir Gregory Winter
Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal
Incumbent
Assumed office 6 September 2005 Life Peerage
Personal details
Born	(1942-06-23) 23 June 1942 (age 82) York, England
Political party	None (crossbencher)
Spouse(s)	Dame Caroline Humphrey, Lady Rees ​ ​ (m. 1986)​ [1]
Website	www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~mjr/
Education	Shrewsbury School[1]
Alma mater	Trinity College, Cambridge (BA, PhD)
Known for	Rees–Sciama effect 21-cm cosmology Coining particle chauvinism
Awards	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[2] (2007) Nierenberg Prize (2015) Fritz Zwicky Prize (2020) Copley Medal (2023) Wolf Prize in Physics (2024)
Scientific career
Fields	Astronomy Astrophysics
Institutions	University of Cambridge University of Sussex
Thesis	Physical processes in radio sources and inter-galactic medium (1967)
Doctoral advisor	Dennis Sciama[3]
Doctoral students	Roger Blandford[3][4] Craig Hogan[5][6] Priyamvada Natarajan[7] James E. Pringle[8] Nick Kaiser[9]

Martin John Rees, Baron Rees of Ludlow, (born 23 June 1942) is a British cosmologist and astrophysicist.^[10] He is the fifteenth Astronomer Royal, appointed in 1995,^[11][12] and was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, from 2004 to 2012 and President of the Royal Society between 2005 and 2010.^[13][14] He has received various physics awards including the Wolf Prize in Physics in 2024 for fundamental contributions to high-energy astrophysics, galaxies and structure formation, and cosmology.

Early life and education

Rees was born on 23 June 1942 in York, England.^[1][15] 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.^[16] 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,^[1] graduating with first class honours. He then undertook post-graduate research at Cambridge and completed a PhD supervised by Dennis Sciama in 1967.^[3][17][18] 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.^[16]

Career

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,^[19] King's College,^[20] Clare Hall,^[21] Robinson College and Jesus College, Cambridge.^[22]

Rees 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^[23] and serves on the Scientific Advisory Board for the Future of Life Institute.^[24] 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).

His doctoral students have included Roger Blandford,^[3][4] Craig Hogan,^[5][6] Nick Kaiser^[25] Priyamvada Natarajan,^[7] and James E. Pringle.

Research

Rees is the author of more than 500 research papers.^[26] He 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,^[27] now published as From Here to Infinity: Scientific Horizons.

Rees 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 challenged the now-rejected steady state theory.^[28] He was one of the first to propose that enormous black holes power quasars,^[29] and that superluminal astronomical observations can be explained as an optical illusion caused by an object moving partly in the direction of the observer.^[30]

Since the 1990s, Rees has worked on gamma-ray bursts, especially in collaboration with Péter Mészáros,^[31] 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".^[32][33]

Public engagement

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.^{[34][35][36][37]}

In his books Our Final Hour and On the Future, Rees warns that humanity faces significant existential risks in the 21st century due to technological advancements, particularly in bioengineering and artificial intelligence. Although he remains optimistic that if it is managed successfully, technology could drastically improve standards of living.^[38]

In 2007, he delivered the Gifford Lectures on 21st Century Science: Cosmic Perspective and Terrestrial Challenges at the University of St Andrews.^[39] He made two TED talks on existential risks.^[40]

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.^[41]

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.^[42]

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" 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 announced in 2022.^[43]

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.^[44]

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.^[45] He is also a current member of the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee.^[46]

Selected bibliography

• Cosmic Coincidences: Dark Matter, Mankind, and Anthropic Cosmology (co-author John Gribbin), 1989, Bantam; ISBN 0-553-34740-3
• New Perspectives in Astrophysical Cosmology, 1995; ISBN 0-521-64544-1
• Gravity's Fatal Attraction: Black Holes in the Universe, 1995; ISBN 0-7167-6029-0, 2nd edition 2009, ISBN 0-521-71793-0
• Before the Beginning – Our Universe and Others, 1997; ISBN 0-7382-0033-6
• Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape the Universe, 1999; ISBN 0-297-84297-8 (see Fine-tuned universe § Examples for a list of the six numbers)
• Our Cosmic Habitat, 2001; ISBN 0-691-11477-3
• Our Final Hour: A Scientist's Warning: How Terror, Error, and Environmental Disaster Threaten Humankind's Future In This Century—On Earth and Beyond (UK title: Our Final Century: Will the Human Race Survive the Twenty-first Century?), 2003; ISBN 0-465-06862-6
• What We Still Don't Know ISBN 978-0-7139-9821-4 yet to be published.
• From Here to Infinity: Scientific Horizons, 2011; ISBN 978-1-84668-503-3
• On the Future: Prospects for Humanity, October 2018, Princeton University Press; ISBN 978-0-691-18044-1
• Rees, Martin (September 2020). "Our place in the universe". Scientific American. 323 (3): 56–62. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0920-58. PMID 39014689. (Online version is titled "How astronomers revolutionized our view of the cosmos".)
• The End of Astronauts (co-author Donald Goldsmith), 2022, Harvard University Press ISBN 9780674257726
• If Science is to Save us, 2022, Polity Press ISBN 9781509554201
• Rees, M.,"Cosmology and High Energy Astrophysics: A 50 year Perspective on Personality, Progress, and Prospects", Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, vol. 60:1–30, 2022.

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,^[47] the Science Academy of Turkey^[48] and the Japan Academy. He became president of the Royal Society on 1 December 2005^[49][50] and continued until the end of the Society's 350th Anniversary Celebrations in 2010. In 2011, he was awarded the Templeton Prize.^[51] 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.^[52][53] In 2005, he was awarded the Crafoord Prize.^[54] Other awards and honours include:

• 1975 – Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences^[55]
• 1982 – Elected to the National Academy of Sciences^[56]
• 1984 – Heineman Prize
• 1987 – Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society
• 1989 – Balzan Prize for High Energy Astrophysics
• 1992 – Knight Bachelor^[57]
• 1993 – Bruce Medal
• 1993 – Elected to the American Philosophical Society^[58]
• 1995 – Honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Science and Technology at Uppsala University, Sweden^[59]
• 1999 – Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement^[60]
• 2000 – Bruno Rossi Prize
• 2001 – Gruber Prize in Cosmology
• 2003 – Albert Einstein World Award of Science^[61]
• 2004 – Henry Norris Russell Lectureship of the American Astronomical Society
• 2004 – Lifeboat Foundation's Guardian Award
• 2004 – Royal Society's Michael Faraday Prize for science communication
• 2005 – Life Peerage^[62]
• 2005 – Crafoord Prize, with James Gunn and James Peebles
• 2007 – Order of Merit – in the personal gift of The Queen^[63]
• 2007 – Caird Medal of the National Maritime Museum
• 2007 – Honorary Fellow^[2] of the Royal Academy of Engineering^[2]
• 2011 – Templeton Prize^[64]
• 2012 – Institute of Physics Isaac Newton Medal
• 2013 – Dirac Medal ICTP^[65]
• 2016 – Honorary Doctorate, Harvard University (awarded in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US on 26 May 2016)
• 2017 – Lilienfeld Prize
• 2020 – Fritz Zwicky Prize for Astrophysics and Cosmology^[66]
• 2020 – Elected a Legacy Fellow of the American Astronomical Society.^[67]
• 2023 – Copley Medal^[68]
• 2024 – Wolf Prize in Physics^[69]

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.^[70]

Personal life

Rees married the anthropologist Caroline Humphrey in 1986.^[1] He is an atheist but has criticized militant atheists for being too hostile to religion.^[71][72][73] Rees is a lifelong supporter of the Labour Party, but has no party affiliation when sitting in the House of Lords.^[74][75]

See also

• Particle chauvinism

References

1. Anon (2017) "REES OF LUDLOW". Who's Who (online Oxford University Press ed.). Oxford: A & C Black. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.) doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.32152 (subscription required)
2. "List of Fellows". raeng.org.uk. Archived from the original on 8 June 2016. Retrieved 29 October 2014.
3. Martin Rees at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
4. Blandford, Roger David (1973). Electrodynamics and astrophysical applications of strong waves. lib.cam.ac.uk (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge. OCLC 500386171. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.450028. Archived from the original on 27 April 2019. Retrieved 11 December 2017.
5. Hogan, Craig James (1980). Pre galactic history (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.258089.
6. Hogan, Craig James. "Curriculum vitae" (PDF). Retrieved 19 February 2018.
7. "CURRICULUM VITAE: Priyamvada Natarajan". Yale CampusPress. Yale University. Retrieved 27 August 2020.
8. "Martin Rees – the Mathematics Genealogy Project".
9. "Curriculum Vitae – Nicholas Kaiser" (PDF). ifa.hawaii.edu. Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 February 2005. Retrieved 13 September 2019.
10. Rees, Martin J. (18 August 2022). "Cosmology and High-Energy Astrophysics: A 50-Year Perspective on Personalities, Progress, and Prospects". Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics. 60 (1): 1–30. Bibcode:2022ARA&A..60....1R. doi:10.1146/annurev-astro-111021-084639. ISSN 0066-4146. S2CID 248066390. Retrieved 19 August 2022.
11. "Portraits of Astronomers Royal". rmg.co.uk. Royal Museums Greenwich. Archived from the original on 4 January 2015. Retrieved 18 February 2015.
12. "Astronomer Royal". The British Monarchy. Royal Household. Archived from the original on 8 March 2016. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
13. "Interviews with Charlie Rose, 2003 and 2008". charlierose.com. Archived from the original on 28 January 2010. accessed 31 August 2014
14. Anon (2010). "New Statesman Interviews Martin Rees". New Statesman. accessed 31 August 2014
15. GRO Register of Births: SEP 1942 9c 1465 YORK – Martin J. Rees, mmn=Bett
16. "Templeton Prize Winners – Discover Laureates From 1973 to Today". Templeton Prize.
17. Rees, Martin (1967). Physical Processes in Radio Sources and the Intergalactic Medium. copac.jisc.ac.uk (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge. Archived from the original on 13 June 2018. Retrieved 30 October 2017.
18. "Inventory: Martin Rees". Financial Times. 2014. Archived from the original on 10 December 2022. Retrieved 31 August 2014.(subscription required)
19. "Master & fellows". Darwin College Cambridge. Retrieved 19 February 2018.
20. "Honorary Fellows". www.kings.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 15 March 2018.
21. "Honorary Fellow | Clare Hall". www.clarehall.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 15 March 2018.
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23. Lewsey, Fred (25 November 2012). "Humanity's last invention and our uncertain future". Research News. University of Cambridge. Retrieved 28 January 2013.
24. Who We Are, Future of Life Institute, 2014, archived from the original on 7 May 2014, retrieved 7 May 2014
25. "Nick Kaiser | Higgs Centre for Theoretical Physics". higgs.ph.ed.ac.uk. 7 August 2014. Retrieved 15 March 2018.
26. Martin Rees publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
27. "BBC Radio 4 – The Reith Lectures, Martin Rees – Scientific Horizons, The Scientific Citizen". BBC. Retrieved 16 March 2023.
28. "Lord Martin Rees". Academy of Achievement. Retrieved 13 October 2024.
29. Rees, M.J. (1984). "Black Hole Models for Active Galactic Nuclei". Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics. 22: 471–506. Bibcode:1984ARA&A..22..471R. doi:10.1146/annurev.aa.22.090184.002351.
30. Rees, M.J. (1966). "Appearance of Relativistically Expanding Radio Sources". Nature. 211 (5048): 468–70. Bibcode:1966Natur.211..468R. doi:10.1038/211468a0. S2CID 41065207.
31. Meszaros, P.; Rees, M. J. (1992). "Tidal heating and mass loss in neutron star binaries – Implications for gamma-ray burst models". Astrophysical Journal. 397 (10): 570. Bibcode:1992ApJ...397..570M. doi:10.1086/171813.
32. Carr, B. J.; Rees, M. J. (1979). "The anthropic principle and the structure of the physical world". Nature. 278 (5705): 605–612. Bibcode:1979Natur.278..605C. doi:10.1038/278605a0. S2CID 4363262.
33. Martin J. Rees (1997). Before the Beginning: Our Universe and Others. Perseus Books. ISBN 978-0-7382-0033-0.
34. "Martin Rees Biography and Interview". www.achievement.org. American Academy of Achievement.
35. Rees, Martin (9 June 2006). "Dark materials". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 16 March 2023.
36. Podcast of Lecture "The World in 2050"^{[permanent dead link‍]}, given at the James Martin 21st Century School, 21school.ox.ac.uk, February 2009.
37. Rees, Martin (23 May 2015). "Astronomer Royal Martin Rees: How soon will robots take over the world?". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 23 June 2019.
38. Illing, Sean (18 October 2018). "Cosmologist Martin Rees gives humanity a 50-50 chance of surviving the 21st century". Vox. Retrieved 13 October 2024.
39. "The St Andrews Gifford Lectures". st-andrews.ac.uk. University of St Andrews.
40. Rees, Martin. "Martin Rees | Speaker". TED. Retrieved 13 October 2024.
41. Interview with Paul Broks Archived 23 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine, Prospectmagazine.co.uk; accessed 31 August 2014.
42. "Celebrities' open letter to Scotland – full text and list of signatories". The Guardian. London. 7 August 2014. Retrieved 26 August 2014.
43. "£4m prize offers hope to people with dementia to stay independent". UK Research and Innovation. 26 September 2022. Retrieved 13 October 2024.
44. Carrington, Damian. "Global Apollo programme seeks to make clean energy cheaper than coal". The Guardian. No. 2 June 2015. Guardian News Media. Retrieved 2 June 2015.
45. "Lord Rees of Ludlow | Spoken contributions". UK Parliament.
46. "Science and Technology Committee - Membership - Committees - UK Parliament".
47. "M.J. Rees". Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on 14 February 2016. Retrieved 14 February 2016.
48. "Foreign Honorary Members". Bilim Akademisi. Archived from the original on 6 January 2015. Retrieved 31 August 2014.
49. "Rees tipped to head science body". BBC News. 29 March 2005. Retrieved 16 March 2023.
50. Martin Rees nominated for presidency of the Royal Society Archived 1 October 2007 at the Wayback Machine, royalsoc.ac.uk, 29 March 2005; accessed 31 August 2014.
51. Sample, Ian (6 April 2011). "Martin Rees wins controversial £1m Templeton prize". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 16 March 2023.
52. "State: Crown Office". The London Gazette. No. 57753. 9 September 2005. p. 11653. Retrieved 5 January 2020.
53. Sir Martin Rees appointed to the House of Lords Archived 6 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine, admin.cam.ac.uk, 1 August 2005; accessed 31 August 2014.
54. Professor Sir Martin Rees wins Crafoord Prize Archived 29 March 2005 at the Wayback Machine, admin.cam.ac.uk, 10 February 2005; accessed 31 August 2014.
55. "Martin John Rees". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. 7 August 2023.
56. "Martin J. Rees". www.nasonline.org.
57. "No. 52935". The London Gazette. 29 May 1992. p. 9177.
58. "APS Member History".
59. "Honorary doctorates – Uppsala University, Sweden". www.uu.se. 9 June 2023.
60. "Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement". www.achievement.org. American Academy of Achievement.
61. "Albert Einstein World Award of Science 2003". Archived from the original on 7 June 2014. Retrieved 13 August 2013.
62. "No. 57753". The London Gazette. 9 September 2005. p. 11653.
63. "No. 58379". The London Gazette. 29 June 2007. p. 9395.
64. Cressey, Daniel (2011). "Martin Rees takes Templeton Prize". Nature. doi:10.1038/news.2011.208.
65. "ICTP - The Medallists". www.ictp.it.
66. "European Astronomical Society 2020 prizes" (PDF). European Astronomical Society. 6 March 2020. Retrieved 6 March 2020.
67. "AAS Fellows". AAS. Retrieved 30 September 2020.
68. Copley Medal 2023
69. "Martin Rees Wolf Prize Laureate in Physics 2024". Wolf Prize. 3 July 2024. Retrieved 20 August 2024.
70. "BBC Four – The Sky at Night, The Astronomer Royal at 80". BBC.
71. "Templeton Report: Martin J. Rees Wins 2011 Templeton Prize". Archived from the original on 3 March 2016.
72. Sample, Ian (6 April 2011). "Martin Rees: I've got no religious beliefs at all – interview". TheGuardian.com.
73. "Can humanity survive the future?". Financial Times. October 2018. Archived from the original on 10 December 2022. Retrieved 5 January 2020. Rees, while stating he is an atheist, declares that he shares a sense of "mystery" with those who believe in God.
74. "Martin Rees: 'We shouldn't attach any weight to what Hawking says". The Independent. 27 September 2010. Retrieved 20 February 2020.
75. Radford, Tim (2 December 2005). "Guardian profile: Martin Rees". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 February 2020.

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Professional and academic associations
Preceded by Robert May	60th President of the Royal Society 2005–2010	Succeeded by Paul Nurse
Preceded by Ken Pounds	78th President of the Royal Astronomical Society 1992–1994	Succeeded by Carole Jordan
Academic offices
Preceded by Amartya Sen	37th Master of Trinity College, Cambridge 2004–2012	Succeeded by Gregory Winter
Orders of precedence in the United Kingdom
Preceded by The Lord Goodlad	Gentlemen Baron Rees of Ludlow	Followed by The Lord Turner of Ecchinswell