death_date birth_place nationality birth_date known_for article_title name occupation
17 august 2015 london , england , united kingdom british 13 september 1920 bonnor beam william b. bonnor
 william b. bonnor mathematician , physicist
william b. bonnor

william bowen bonnor -lrb- 9 september 1920 -- 17 august 2015 -rrb- was a mathematician and gravitation physicist best known for his research into astrophysics , cosmology and general relativity .
for most of his academic career he was a professor of mathematics at the university of london .
william bonnor was born in london on 13 september 1920 .
he was educated at county high school , ilford , at south east essex technical college and at birkbeck college .
his degrees of b.sc. , ph.d. and d.sc .
were all obtained by part-time study .
on leaving school in 1937 bonnor served in clerical and executive branches of the civil service until 1944 , when he became a chemist in the admiralty , doing development work in paint technology .
in 1946 he joined shell refining and marketing company to work on the rheology of lubricating greases .
his career as a mathematician commenced in 1949 after obtaining a degree in mathematics at birkbeck college .
he joined the department of applied mathematics at the university of liverpool , where he met his future wife , jean stott , a staff tutor in social science .
in 1957 he was appointed reader and head of the mathematics department at queen elizabeth college -lrb- qec -rrb- , university of london .
he was promoted to professor in 1962 , and stayed with the college until retirement in 1985 .
this period was the golden age of general relativity , and bonnor played a part in it , particularly in the london relativity seminar .
this had begun at imperial college in the 1950s , moved to king 's college and then to qec from 1977 to 1983 .
he was also active internationally , making contact with scientific workers in the socialist countries in eastern europe , particularly those in jena in east germany .
during this period he published a paper on the bonnor beam which models the gravitational field of a beam of light .
bonnor held visiting appointments at the universities of illinois -lrb- 1960 -- 61 -rrb- , otago -lrb- 1984 -rrb- and cape town -lrb- 1984 -- 86 -rrb- .
in 1999 he was awarded the honorary degree of d.sc .
by the university of portsmouth .
bonnor 's research was published in about 150 papers in various scientific journals .
the most cited paper described the effect of gravitation on boyle 's law ; this has been extensively used in the theory of star formation .
another well-cited paper applies newtonian dynamics to the formation of galaxies in cosmology .
however , most of bonnor 's research was on the theory of general relativity .
in this area he worked on the theory of gravitational waves , on the field of two charged bodies , and on the interaction of spinning particles .
in 1964 he published `` the mystery of the expanding universe '' , a popular book on cosmology .
he married jean stott , and had two children : helen and richard .
he had four grandchildren : amy , tim , jessica and george .
william bonnor died at his home of a heart attack on august 17th , 2015 .
