Martin Rees

Martin Rees (born June 23, 1942, York, England) is an English cosmologist and astrophysicist who was a main expositor of the big-bang theory of the origins of the universe.

Rees was raised in Shropshire, in the English Midlands. After receiving a bachelor’s degree in mathematics (1963) and master’s and doctorate degrees in theoretical astronomy (1967) at Trinity College, Cambridge, he pursued an academic career in cosmology, mainly at Cambridge but with interludes in the United States at Princeton (1969–70, 1982, 1996, and 1997) and Harvard (1972 and 1988–89) universities and at the California Institute of Technology (1968 and 1971). He also taught briefly at Sussex University (1972–73). Rees became one of the world’s leading authorities on the big-bang theory and on the related topics of black holes, quasars, pulsars, galaxy formation, and gamma-ray bursts. His early prediction that a black hole would be found at the centre of the Milky Way Galaxy was borne out by subsequent observations.

In 1973 Rees was appointed Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy at Cambridge, a position he held until 1991. He also directed the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge (1977–82 and 1987–91). Rees later became Royal Society Research Professor at Cambridge (1992–2003) and then professor of cosmology and astrophysics in 2002. He was named to the highly prestigious but essentially honorary position of astronomer royal in 1995. In 2004–12 he served as master of Trinity College.

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Rees was never content to keep within the narrow technical bounds of cosmological theory. In his books and lectures, he explored the links between science and philosophy and humankind’s place in the universe. Gravity’s Fatal Attraction: Black Holes in the Universe (1995), cowritten by Rees, contextualizes black holes in the larger astronomical discourse, and Before the Beginning—Our Universe and Others (1997) provides an overview of current astronomical knowledge and hypothesizes that the known universe is one of an infinite number of other, different universes. New Perspectives in Astrophysical Cosmology (2000) similarly reviews the contemporary understanding of the universe while providing discussion of unproven theories.

Our Final Century (2003; published in the United States as Our Final Hour), in some ways a logical culmination of more than 30 years’ work, belongs to a long tradition in which scientists, philosophers, and mathematicians have warned of the dangers of uncontrolled scientific advance. Rees, not known for extravagant assertions, calmly stated in the book that humankind had only a 50 percent chance of surviving until the year 2100. He argued not that the human race would be wiped out by aggressive aliens but that the pace of technological change threatened to outstrip the ability of humans to control it. Rees’s later books included On the Future: Prospects for Humanity (2018). He also hosted the documentary What We Still Don’t Know (2007), which investigates, among other topics, the possibility of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.

Rees was made a fellow of the Royal Society in 1979 and served as president of that body from 2005 to 2010. He was made a foreign associate of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 1982. In 1992 he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. He received the Royal Society’s Faraday Award in 2004 and in 2005 was awarded the Crafoord Prize by the Royal Swedish Academy, of which he had been a foreign member since 1993. In 2005 he received a life peerage. Rees won the Templeton Prize in 2011.