Some Famous Australian Physicists
Ross H. McKenzie is a Professorial Research Fellow in Physics at the University of
Queensland. He is notable
for his work in quantum many-body theory of complex materials ranging from organic
superconductors to
biomolecules to rare-earth oxide catalysts.
Education
He received his BSc from Australian National University. He obtained an MA from Princeton
University. He
completed his PhD at Princeton University in 1989, under Jim Sauls, with a thesis entitled:
Nonlinear
interaction of zero sound with the order parameter collective modes in superfluid 3He-B.
David Blair (physicist)
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David G. Blair (b. 1946) is an Australian physicist and professor of physics at the University
of Western
Australia and director of the Australian International Gravitational Research Centre. Blair
works on methods
for the detection of gravity waves.[citation needed]
In 2005 - the World Year of Physics, he was awarded the Anzaas Medal. He is also involved
in physics
education though the Gravity Discovery Centre in Western Australia.[citation needed]
[edit] Publications
Professor Blair is the co-author of Ripples on a Cosmic Sea: The Search for Gravitational
Waves, and the editor
of the book The Detection of Gravitational Waves.[citation needed] The major highlights in his
career was of course
receiving this award and he also coordinates new projects for the educational discovery
centre and he’s
developed a niobium wave gravity detector and in 1984 developed the first sapphire clock – a
super precise
timepiece designed for space. In 2005 ,the World Year of Physics, he was awarded the
Anzaas Medal. He is
also involved in physics education though the Gravity Discovery Centre in Western
Australia.
Helen Quinn
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Helen Quinn at Harvard University
Helen Quinn (born 1943) is an Australian-born particle physicist. She went to school in
Victoria, Australia,
and entered college at the University of Melbourne before moving to the USA and
transferring to Stanford
University. She received her Ph.D. from Stanford in 1967, at a time when less than 2% of
physicists were
women. She did her postdoctoral work at the DESY (the German Synchrotron Laboratory) in
Hamburg,
Germany. She next spent seven years at Harvard University before returning to Stanford
where she is now a
professor of physics at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.
Working with Howard Georgi and Steven Weinberg, Helen showed how the three types of
particle interactions
(strong, electromagnetic, and weak), which look very different as we see their impact in the
world around us,
become very similar in extremely high-energy processes and so might be three aspects of a
single unified force.
She suggested a possible near-symmetry of the universe (now known as Peccei-Quinn
symmetry) to explain
how strong interactions can maintain CP-symmetry (the symmetry between matter and
antimatter) when weak
interactions do not. One consequence of this theory is a particle known as the axion which
has yet to be
observed but is one candidate for the dark matter that pervades the universe.
She showed how the physics of quarks can be used to predict certain aspects of the physics of
hadrons (which
are particles made from quarks) regardless of the details of the hadron’s structure (with
Enrico Poggio and
Steven Weinberg). This useful property is now known as quark-hadron duality.
Helen also works with elementary and high school teachers in California to make physics fun
and exciting for
students. She has given public talks in various countries on "The Missing Antimatter", in
which she suggests
that this area of research is promising.
Debra Searles
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A major contributor to this article appears to have a conflict of interest with its subject.
It may
require cleanup to comply with Wikipedia's content policies, particularly neutral point of
view. Please
discuss further on the talk page. (November 2007)
Debra Searles is the professional name for an Australian theoretical chemist whose married
name is Debra
Bernhardt. She is best known for her contributions towards understanding the Fluctuation
Theorem. This
theorem shows the Second law of thermodynamics and the Zeroth law of thermodynamics
can be derived
mathematically rather than postulated as laws of Nature.
Contents
[hide]
1 Personal Profile
2 Research Interests
3 Selected Publications
4 See also
5 External links
[edit] Personal Profile
Bernhardt is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Science at Griffith University. Her PhD
studies were in
the field of quantum chemistry and her fields of research now include statistical mechanics,
dynamical systems
theory, nonequilibrium fluids and molecular dynamics simulations of fluids.