   donald lynden-bell cbe frs (born 5 april 1935) is an english astrophysicist, best known for his theories that galaxies contain massive black holes at their centre, and that such black holes are the principal source of energy in quasars. he was a co-recipient, with maarten schmidt, of the inaugural kavli prize for astrophysics in 2008. lynden-bell has been the president of the royal astronomical society. he currently works at the institute of astronomy in cambridge; he was the institute's first director. educated at the university of cambridge, in 1962 he published research with olin eggen and allan sandage arguing that our galaxy originated through the dynamic collapse of a single large gas cloud. in 1969 he published his theory that quasars are powered by massive black holes accreting material. from counting dead quasars, he deduced that most massive galaxies have black holes at their centres. he was also a member of a group of astronomers known as the 'seven samurai' (sandra faber, david burstein, alan dressler, donald ly
1935_births Alumni_of_the_University_of_Cambridge English_astronomers Fellows_of_Clare_College,_Cambridge Fellows_of_the_Royal_Astronomical_Society Fellows_of_the_Royal_Society Living_people Members_of_the_Norwegian_Academy_of_Science_and_Letters Members_of_the_United_States_National_Academy_of_Sciences National_Academy_of_Sciences_laureates People_educated_at_Marlborough_College People_from_Dover,_Kent Recipients_of_the_Gold_Medal_of_the_Royal_Astronomical_Society