Roy Kerr

Kerr was born in 1934 in Kurow, New Zealand. He was born into a dysfunctional family, and his mother was forced to leave when he was three. When his father went to war, he was sent to a farm. After his father's return from war, they moved to Christchurch. He was accepted to St Andrew's College, a private school, as his father had served under a former headmaster.{{cite news |last=McCrone |first=John |title=Bright sparks and black holes |url= http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/christchurch-life/8372542/Bright-sparks-and-black-holes |access-date=2 March 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130304042336if_/http://www.stuff.co.nz:80/the-press/christchurch-life/8372542/Bright-sparks-and-black-holes|archive-date=2013-03-04|work=The Press |date=2 March 2013 |page=C2}} Kerr's mathematical talent was first recognised while he was still a student at St Andrew's College. Although there was no mathematics teacher there at the time, he was able in 1951 to go straight into the third year of mathematics at Canterbury University College, a constituent of the University of New Zealand and the precursor to the University of Canterbury. Their regulations did not permit him to graduate until 1954 and so it was not until September 1955 that he moved to the University of Cambridge, where he earned his PhD in 1959.{{Cite web |title=Roy Kerr |url=https://mathgenealogy.org/id.php?id=45397 |website=Mathematics Genealogy Project}} His dissertation concerned the equations of motion in general relativity.{{MacTutor|id=Kerr_Roy|title=Roy Kerr}}

After a postdoctoral fellowship at Syracuse University, where Einstein's collaborator Peter Bergmann was a professor,{{Cite web |title=2003 Einstein Prize Recipient |url=https://www.aps.org/programs/honors/prizes/prizerecipient.cfm?last_nm=Bergmann&first_nm=Peter&year=2003 |access-date=11 January 2024 |website=aps.org}}{{Cite news |last=Overbye |first=Dennis |date=October 23, 2002 |title=Peter G. Bergmann, 87; Worked With Einstein |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/23/nyregion/peter-g-bergmann-87-worked-with-einstein.html |work=The New York Times}} he spent some time working for the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Kerr speculated that the "main reason why the US Air Force had created a General Relativity section was probably to show the U.S. Navy that they could also do pure research."{{cite arXiv | title=Discovering the Kerr and Kerr–Schild metrics | eprint=0706.1109 | author1=Kerr | year=2007| class=gr-qc }}

In 1962, Kerr joined Alfred Schild and his Relativity Group at the University of Texas at Austin. As Kerr wrote in 2009:

:By the summer of 1963, Maarten Schmidt at Caltech had shown that certain starlike objects (now called quasars) were actually distant objects emitting enormous amounts of energy. Nobody understood how they could be so bright. In an effort to unravel this mystery, several hundred astronomers, astrophysicists, and general relativists gathered for a conference in Dallas, held in early December that year. This would be the First (of what since then has become the biennial) Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics.Roy Kerr (2009) Afterword, page 125 of Cracking the Einstein Code by Fulvio Melia

Kerr presented to the Symposium his solution to the Einstein field equations.{{cite journal | last=Kerr | first=Roy P. | title=Gravitational Field of a Spinning Mass as an Example of Algebraically Special Metrics | journal=Physical Review Letters | publisher=American Physical Society (APS) | volume=11 | issue=5 | date=1963-09-01 | issn=0031-9007 | doi=10.1103/physrevlett.11.237 | pages=237–238|bibcode=1963PhRvL..11..237K}} Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (Nobel laureate, 1983) is quoted as having said :

: "In my entire scientific life, extending over forty-five years, the most shattering experience has been the realization that an exact solution of Einstein's equations of general relativity, discovered by the New Zealand mathematician, Roy Kerr, provides the absolutely exact representation of untold numbers of massive black holes that populate the universe" [https://nzmathsoc.org.nz/downloads/profiles/NZMSprofile58_Roy_Kerr.pdf?t=1262766416 New Zealand Mathematical Society Newsletter, No. 58, August 1993]

In 1965, with Alfred Schild, he introduced the concept of Kerr–Schild perturbations and developed the Kerr–Newman metric.{{cite journal |author1=Kerr, R. P. |author2=Schild, A. |name-list-style=amp | title=Some algebraically degenerate solutions of Einstein's gravitational field equations | journal=Proc. Symp. Appl. Math. | year=1965 | volume=17 | pages=119}}{{cite journal |author1=Debney, G.C. |author2=Kerr, R. P. |author3=Schild, A. |name-list-style=amp | title=Solutions of the Einstein and Einstein-Maxwell Equations | journal=J. Math. Phys.| year=1969 | volume=10 | issue=10 | pages=1842 | doi=10.1063/1.1664769|bibcode = 1969JMP....10.1842D }}{{cite journal | title=Extended Kerr–Schild spacetimes: General properties and some explicit examples | arxiv=1401.1060 | author1=Tomáš Málek | year=2014 | doi=10.1088/0264-9381/31/18/185013 | volume=31 | issue=18 | journal=Classical and Quantum Gravity | page=185013| bibcode=2014CQGra..31r5013M | s2cid=118690479 }} During his time in Texas, Kerr supervised four PhD students.

In 1971, Kerr returned to the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. Kerr retired from his position as Professor of Mathematics at the University of Canterbury in 1993 after having been there for twenty-two years, including ten years as the head of the Mathematics department.

File:Roy Kerr CNZM investiture.jpg by the governor-general, Sir Anand Satyanand, at Government House, Wellington, on 14 April 2011]]

• Hector Medal (1982) "for his work in theoretical physics. ... an exact solution of Einstein's equations of general relativity, ..."
• Hughes Medal (1984) "for his distinguished work on relativity, especially for his discovery of the so-called Kerr Black Hole, which has been very influential."
• Rutherford Medal (1993) "For his outstanding discoveries in the extra-terrestrial world of black holes."
• [http://www.icra.it/MG/mg11/mg11awards-booklet.pdf Marcel Grossmann Award] (2006) "for his fundamental contribution to Einstein's theory of general relativity: ..."
• Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to astrophysics (2011){{cite web | url=https://www.dpmc.govt.nz/publications/new-year-honours-list-2011 | title=New Year honours list 2011 |date=31 December 2010| publisher=Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet | access-date=5 January 2018}}
• Albert Einstein Medal (2013) "for his 1963 discovery of a solution to Einstein's gravitational field equations."
• Crafoord Prize in Astronomy (2016){{cite web |url=http://www.crafoordprize.se/press/arkivpressreleases/thecrafoordprizesinmathematicsandastronomy2016.5.76308e0c152098549fa15a0.html |title= for fundamental work on rotating black holes and their astrophysical consequences |publisher=Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20201108171402/https://www.crafoordprize.se/press/arkivpressreleases/thecrafoordprizesinmathematicsandastronomy2016.5.76308e0c152098549fa15a0.html |archive-date=8 November 2020 |date=2016 |url-status=live}}
• [http://www.comsdev.canterbury.ac.nz/rss/news/?articleId=1894 Canterbury Distinguished Professor] (2016)
• Oskar Klein Medal (2020){{cite web |title=Earlier Lectures - Oskar Klein Centre |url=https://www.su.se/cmlink/2.48708/research/memorial-lecture/earlier-lectures |website=www.su.se |publisher=Stockholm University |date=30 May 2023}}{{cite web |last1=Kerr |first1=Roy |author1-link=Roy Kerr |title=Oscar Klein Lecture: Roy P. Kerr - Kerr Black Holes have no Singularities |url=https://indico.fysik.su.se/event/7186/ |website=Agenda (Indico) |publisher=Stockholm University |date=17 December 2020}}{{cite arXiv |title=Do Black Holes have Singularities? |date=5 December 2023|eprint=2312.00841 |last1=Kerr |first1=R. P. |class=gr-qc }}
• [https://www.ieti.net/pro/memberdetail.aspx?ID=1073 Laureate Distinguished Fellow of IETI] (2024)

In 2008 Kerr was appointed to the Yevgeny Lifshitz ICRANet Chair in Pescara, Italy.

Fulvio Melia interviewed Kerr about his work on the solution for the book Cracking the Einstein Code: Relativity and the Birth of Black Hole Physics published in 2009.Dan Falk (7 October 2009) [https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427295.900-review-cracking-the-einstein-code-by-fulvio-melia.html Review: Cracking the Einstein Code], New Scientist Kerr contributed an "Afterword" of two and a half pages.

In 2012, it was announced that Kerr would be honoured by the Albert Einstein Society in Switzerland with the 2013 Albert Einstein Medal. He is the first New Zealander to receive the prestigious award.{{Cite news |last=Stewart |first=Ashleigh |date=20 December 2012 |title=Einstein Medal for NZ professor |url=https://www.stuff.co.nz/science/8101704/Einstein-Medal-for-NZ-professor |work= Stuff}}

In December 2015, the University of Canterbury awarded Kerr an honorary Doctor of Science.{{cite press release |url=http://www.comsdev.canterbury.ac.nz/rss/news/?articleId=1810 |title=Two Kiwi greats receive UC Honorary Doctorates |date=10 December 2015 |publisher=University of Canterbury |access-date=16 December 2015}}

Kerr is married to Margaret. In 2022, after 9 years in Tauranga they returned to Christchurch, where they now reside. Kerr was a notable bridge player representing New Zealand internationally in the mid-1970s.{{WBFpeople|15464}} He was co-author of the Symmetric Relay System, a bidding system in contract bridge.{{Cite web |last=Sharko |first=Andrei |date=2004 |title=Symmetric: The Symmetric Relay Contract Bridge Bidding System Made Easy |url=https://www.pagat.com/docs/SymmetricRelay.pdf |website=pagat.com}}

{{Reflist}}

{{Commons category}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20051215003113/http://ifs.massey.ac.nz/mathnews/centrefolds/58/Aug1993.shtml Professor Roy Kerr]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20130207181959/http://www.phys.canterbury.ac.nz/people/kerr.shtml University of Canterbury: Roy Kerr]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20060212025144/http://www.listener.co.nz/default,2629.sm Man of Mystery]
• [http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/biography/KerrRoy.html Roy Kerr]
• [http://www.icra.it/MG/ Marcel Grossmann meetings]
• [http://www2.phys.canterbury.ac.nz/kerrfest/booklet.pdf Kerr Fest & CV]
• [https://archive.today/20130414101550/http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521885126 The Kerr Spacetime]
• [http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/19766681?q=%22e.arnold%22+%2Bkerr&c=book Kerr family history]
• {{WBF|15464|Roy P. Kerr}}
• {{WBF Master Points|1323|Roy Kerr}}

{{Recipients of the Rutherford Medal}}

{{Recipients of the Hector Memorial Medal}}

{{relativity}}

{{FRS 2019}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kerr, Roy}}

Category:1934 births

Category:Living people

Category:People from Kurow

Category:20th-century New Zealand mathematicians

Category:Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge

Category:Companions of the New Zealand Order of Merit

Category:Relativity theorists

Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of New Zealand

Category:Syracuse University alumni

Category:University of Canterbury alumni

Category:Recipients of the Rutherford Medal

Category:New Zealand contract bridge players

Category:People educated at St Andrew's College, Christchurch

Category:Donegall Lecturers of Mathematics at Trinity College Dublin

Category:Albert Einstein Medal recipients

Category:Fellows of the Royal Society