Thirty-year old Harry Messel accepted the Chair of Physics at the University of Sydney in 1952 only after the University agreed to support him in his efforts to transform the then Physics Department into one capable of carrying out world class research, of attracting high level academic staff and of educating students to doctoral and postdoctoral level.

At the time of his acceptance, the Department was moribund with only four permanent academic staff assisted by a number of casual staff in delivering undergraduate courses containing little 20th century physics. The Commonwealth Government had recently established the Australian National University as the sole provider of research training at doctoral level and provided no research funding to the State universities. The iconic building the Department shared with the mathematics departments was still not completely finished due to lack of funds and in a very run down state. Harry had a plan to change all this and the steely determination and energy to implement it.

The University had agreed to appoint twelve additional permanent staff and allocate the substantial Denison Bequest to the Department. It also directed to Physics 15% of the £40,000 it allocated explicitly each year to its departments for research. Over the next few years it carried out major works (£80,000) on the Physics Building, bringing it to a more acceptable condition. All of this allowed Harry to begin his transformation by revising the undergraduate curriculum to include more modern physics and to perform his theoretical and experimental nuclear physics research. However resources still fell short of what was required and he decided to approach business and the wider community for financial support.

In 1954 Harry established the Nuclear Research Foundation (now the Physics Foundation), the first of its kind in the British Commonwealth. Four of its new members contributed a total of £250,000 to the Foundation during its first few years (approximately $8.5 million today) and the NSW and Commonwealth Governments each contributed a further £50,000. Continued on page 3...

30 year old Harry Messel as the newly appointed Head of School.

Physics NewsSpring 2015

A visionary transformation of physicsBy Honorary Associate Professor Robert HewittSchool of Physics Alum, BSc (1965), PhD (1968)

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Head of School reportHead of School

During my time as Head over the past three years, I have enjoyed many stimulating and thought-provoking conversations with Harry. Even in his nineties, he was a passionate and formidable advocate for the causes he believed in, so what he was like in his younger years I can only imagine!

On 18 September, we held a memorial service for Harry Messel in the Great Hall of the University. This was a wonderful event, attended by many of Harry’s family, colleagues and friends. Tributes were given by Dame Marie Bashir (former Chancellor of the University), Nicolas Messel and Michael Winternitz (Harry’s grandsons), Albert Wong (President of the Physics Foundation), Professor John Mattick (Director of the Garvin Institute of Medical Research and ISS scholar from 1966), Emeritus Professor Richard Collins (former Head of the School of Physics), and Dr Michael Spence (Vice Chancellor of the University of Sydney). The event was a fitting tribute to a giant of Australian science, a man who dedicated his life to the pursuit of excellence.

We are also sorry to report the passing of Associate Professor Murray Winn. Murray was appointed as a lecturer in the School’s Falkiner Nuclear Department in 1959 and retired in 1988, but remained very active almost to the end. Murray was brilliant in electronics, with an

intrinsic feel for the subject. One career highlight was his design and implementation of a large cosmic ray air shower array - SUGAR - situated near Narrabri in the Pilliga State Forest. The brilliant concept was to link all the recording stations stretched over almost 100 square kilometres, not by cables, but by time-coded radio signals recorded continuously at each station.

Coincidences were then searched for in the computer records. The concept was ground-breaking and has since been replicated in subsequent experiments around the world. Murray was in charge of the Senior Physics Laboratory from 1980 to 1988, and his love of science showed in his experimental designs. Many students were encouraged and inspired by Murray’s enthusiasm for physics. Murray died on 19 June 2015, after a short stay in Greenwich Private Hospital.

On a happier note, members of the School continue to achieve great success. Many congratulations to Michael Biercuk on winning the Eureka Prize for Outstanding Early Career Researcher. This prize, sponsored by Macquarie University, was presented to Mike at Sydney Town Hall at the 2015 Australian Museum Eureka Prizes Award Dinner.

Much of this issue is devoted to tributes to the late Harry Messel, who passed away on 8 July 2015 at the age of 93. Professor Messel was Head of the School of Physics from 1952 to 1987, and he continued to maintain close ties to the School throughout the rest of his life.

Professor Tim Bedding, Head of School

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Continued from cover

More than a hundred other members paid an annual membership fee which by 1961 provided an annual income to the Foundation of more than £100,000. This income was used to buy equipment, to hire support staff, to pay salary loadings to senior academics and to act as seed funding for grants from other sources.

In 1959 Harry persuaded the University to break from the long established practice in all British style universities to have only one professor per department and then formed the School of Physics with internal “departments”, each headed by a professor. This allowed him to attract and retain high quality senior staff and was a necessary prerequisite to establish a true research university. He immediately created five internal departments: Basser Computing Department; Chatterton Astronomy Department; Daily Telegraph Theoretical Physics Department (later renamed Sir Frank Packer Theoretical Department); Falkiner Nuclear Physics Department; and Wills Thermonuclear Physics Department (later renamed WD and HO Wills Plasma Physics Department). The names recognised the major early donors to the Foundation. He then progressively recruited prominent people as professors to head these departments and successfully raised the funds required to build the Narrabri Stellar Intensity Interferometer, the Mills Cross and a replacement for SILLIAC, The Cecil and Ida Green Computer. The Astrophysics Department separated from the Chatterton Department in 1965.

The School obtained the space necessary for its expansion when the Carslaw Building was constructed in 1962 and the Physics Annexe in 1964. In 1976 Harry created the Environmental Physics Department incorporating the crocodile telemetry group that he headed for 15 years and in 1980 the Applied Physics Department incorporating the evacuated tube solar thermal group.

Many other organisations followed Harry’s example and established foundations and this inevitably reduced the philanthropic income available to the School. By this stage however the School was strong enough to obtain the requisite funds from the newly established competitive research grant schemes. Harry was extremely proud that his successors built on his legacy to create the impressive School of today.

SNH Update By Professor Zdenka Kuncic Director, Community and Research, Australian Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology (AINST)

The Sydney Nanoscience Hub (SNH) building, formerly known as the AIN building project, is now complete and while many students have been enjoying the new teaching spaces since the beginning of Semester 2, it is the research business for which everyone is holding their breath.

The SNH has been purpose built for nanoscience discovery and for developing innovative nanotechnologies that harness nanoscale materials and structures. In addition to Professor Ben Eggleton’s lab for nanoscale photonics and phononics, and Professor David Reilly’s and Associate Professor Mike Biercuk’s labs for precision quantum science and quantum control, the SNH also houses a state-of-the-art cleanroom. When fully commissioned, the cleanroom will accommodate university core facilities, including world-class nano-lithography tools and a research prototyping foundry which will enable development and translation of nanofabricated devices such as nanoscale electronic chips integrated into next-generation electronic circuit boards.

The Australian Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology (AINST) has been established to engage the broader university community in a research agenda that addresses the key societal challenges of energy and environment, health and medicine, communications, computing and security, as well as pushing the frontiers of fundamental knowledge. To date, the AINST community includes researchers from a total of 14 schools across the faculties of science, engineering, health science, medicine and pharmacy. The interdisciplinary research programme aims to cut across discipline boundaries to create new opportunities for breakthrough discoveries in nanoscience and for innovations in nanotechnology.

The SNH on the evening of the CIS Thank You event, Friday 14 August. Image: Professor Joss Bland-Hawthorn

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Physics Heads of School 1952 to present (L-R): Professor Tim Bedding, Professor Anne Green, Professor Brian James, Emeritus Professor Harry Messel AC CBE, Emeritus Professor Richard Collins, Emeritus Professor Max Brenan AO and Professor Don Melrose at the 60th Anniversary of the Physics Foundation in March 2014. Not present: Professor Lawrence Cram and Professor Clive Baldock.

With the passing of Emeritus Professor Harry Messel AC CBE on 8 July 2015, Australia lost a formidable champion of the pursuit of excellence in scientific research and education. He was 93. One of his oft-repeated quotes is “A life lived in pursuit of excellence is a life well lived.” Harry was a visionary, a powerful intellect, charismatic and very persuasive, and he leaves an enduring legacy.

When Harry was offered the position of Head of the School of Physics in 1952 at the University of Sydney, having just left the University of Adelaide, the then Vice-Chancellor at Sydney, Sir Stephen Roberts, made the following comment to the Senate, “while the tribulations of the administration will probably be added to by this dynamic personality, the Department of Physics will gain increasing international reputation”. It is amazing to recall that at 30 years of age, he was appointed Head of the School, a position he held for 35 years, from 1952 until 1987.

Harry was extraordinary in not only appointing an unprecedented number of outstanding young professors of physics, but he also provided the resources for them to undertake world-class research. As a consequence, the international reputation of Physics at Sydney did grow rapidly. One of Harry’s big successes was persuading the National Science Foundation of the USA to donate nearly $US 1 million to fund construction of the Mills Cross, designed by Bernard Mills, one of Harry’s star professors. This telescope was opened in November 1965 by the then Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies. It is still a leading research facility and celebrates 50 years of important science discoveries this year.

My personal interactions with Harry started when I arrived from Melbourne University to undertake a PhD with Bernie Mills. Like several other non-Sydney students, I had to redo my Honours year, to convince Harry I was up to scratch. As the first female PhD student in Physics I was a

curiosity but pleased to be in such an exciting research environment. Harry was an inspirational and charismatic figure as Head of School, with a booming voice and boundless energy. It was only years later when I became the first female Head of School, that I appreciated what an incredible person Harry was in single-handedly enabling so much outstanding research to occur. He demanded we all give our best effort always. In fact, it was Harry and the televising of the lectures from the Summer Science School (later the International Science School) that first kindled my interest in physics. Harry was a dynamic advocate for the importance of education at both secondary and tertiary levels, setting the bar high without any apology. Hard work was his recipe for success. Harry’s legacy will endure in many domains and his focus on the “pursuit of excellence” will remain a touchstone for the thousands of students and scientists that he inspired.

Emeritus Professor Harry Messel (1922 – 2015) A legacy of excellence and an exceptional Head of SchoolBy Professor Anne GreenSchool of Physics Alum, (PhD) 1973

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All of us think about Harry Messel’s great achievements in bringing great physicists to Sydney University and finding the resources for them to carry our their research. In these few words I want to remind us all that Harry was a first rate theoretical physicist whose work has had significant impact on our understanding of Cosmic Ray shower development and on the design of particle physics detectors.

After his war service and his undergraduate double degree, a BA with honours in mathematics and a BSc with honours in Engineering Physics, he then went on to do his PhD at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. There he was supervised by Erwin Schrödinger (one of the co-discovers of Quantum Mechanics) and Lajos Janossy, graduating in 1951.

Today new elementary particles are discovered at accelerators. In the 1940s and 50s Cosmic Ray interactions was where exciting new particle physics discoveries were being made. It is no surprise that he devoted himself to Cosmic Ray physics, both as a student and then in Adelaide and Sydney. About the time he came to Sydney he wrote an invited review chapter on The Development of a Nucleon Cascade for the 1953 edition of Progress in Cosmic Ray Physics.

By the mid 1950s he was concentrating his work on electron-photon showers. Electrons are a common product of the interaction of high energy particles with matter. When they have a sufficiently high energy they produce photons when passing through matter. High energy photons interact with nuclei to produce electron-positron pairs, This goes on to produce a shower of particles, called an electron-photon shower. By the early 1960s Messel and his collaborators were producing the standard work in this field. This was codified in 1970 in the 1,512-page book, Electron Shower Distribution Functions, by Harry Messel and David Crawford. This book and the papers on which it is based are the basis for the verification of modern computer programs characterising showers. Until those programs came into widespread use in the 1990s the work of Messel and Crawford was used in the design of modern particle detectors, and summarised in the particle physicist’s handbook — The Review of Particle Physics.

Harry had started his physics work on Cosmic Rays because that was the physics frontier of the time. His physics research produced results, which are fundamental to the design of those detectors now used at accelerators, such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), where the long-sought Higgs Boson was discovered in 2013.

Harry the theoretical physicistBy Professor Bruce H J McKellar AC, Honorary Professorial Fellow at University of Melbourne CoEPPSchool of Physics Alum, BSc Hons (1962), PhD (1966)

Before arriving in Australia in 1951, Harry had already written 14 papers and wrote 5 more in the rest of 1951. In the 21st Century when there is so much pressure to publish it is not unusual to write more than 14 papers as a result of one’s PhD, but in the mid-20th Century it was remarkable — so remarkable that, when writing a reference in connection with Harry’s application for the Chair in Sydney, Schrödinger said that Harry’s eagerness for his research was “unparalleled by anything I have met with before (although I have been teaching physics since 1911)”.

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I first became aware of Harry in the late 1950s. This was a period of great advances in physics, but by and large, Australian universities were sleepy backwaters, teaching physics much as it had been taught before the War. This was especially true of the University of Queensland, where I was a student.

Then one day in 1958 Harry gave a talk to the Queensland Institute of Physics. It was aimed directly at recent graduates, and its message was: come to where the action is. Come to where first years attended courses on modern physics that other universities taught at fourth year level; and where researchers get to work on the legendary automatic computer, SILLIAC. Fired with enthusiasm I pulled up my roots and went to Sydney.

I met Harry face-to-face on my first day. I was summoned to his office, and what an impressive office it was — potted plants, bear skin rug on the floor, “dragon lady” in the anteroom. The meeting was pretty well in/out, and the only message I took away was: “We don’t want slackers round here.” It turned out that grad students from other universities were asked to show they were not slacking by spending a year taking Sydney’s honours lecture course. Eventually they got to start a project of their own, and to meet the famous SILLIAC.

As computer users, the job of the research student (or other academic) was to prepare the data for the computer to process. It was fed into the machine in the form of holes in a long paper tape. The people who actually did the feeding in and other hands-on stuff, were the operators. It was good strategy for the (mostly male) research students to get to know the (mostly female) operators who might be persuaded to advance one’s job higher in the queue.

It was surely inevitable that the two groups should find other interests, outside the rarefied life of academic research, and in the early 1960s there were several marriages between operators, programmers and post-docs, including my own. When Harry was informed about what was going on, his unsolicited advice was: “Don’t get married till you’ve got your Ph.D.” (It was ignored.)

Eventually the Ph.D. thesis was submitted, and the next question was where to go if you wanted gain wider research experience in an overseas institution. It turns out that Harry had many connections in the international field, and in early 1960s he established a staff/student exchange scheme with Cornell University, known as the Cornell-Sydney University Astronomy Center (CSUAC). In a period of four or five years, nine Sydney graduates (including me) took advantage of this scheme.

All in all, the early 1960s was a good time to be a research student in Harry Messel’s School of Physics.

Messel Memories By one who was a research student in the early years of his reign: Associate Professor Ian Johnston, Sydney University Physics Education Research Group, School of Physics Alum, PhD 1964

The University of Sydney’s springboard to the technological revolution, SILLIAC is the first high-performance, automatic, stored program digital computer to be built in Australia. At its peak SILLIAC ran twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week and was used by over 2,000 people. In the mid 1960s it was used in Australia’s first networking experiments.

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One of Harry Messel’s most cherished principles was the importance of honouring excellence. Seeking to nurture the talent he saw in school science classrooms in the 1960s, he created an innovative program that introduced young science students to some of the world’s leading researchers, and showed them the possibilities of a future in science. More than 50 years later, the Professor Harry Messel International Science School continues to celebrate the success of our brightest students, challenges them to pursue their interests, and helps them to forge new friendships across the globe. The first Science School, held in 1958, was aimed at high school science teachers, but after four years Harry shifted the focus to encouraging talented young students towards further studies and careers in science. In 1962 the first cohort of

“scholars” — 151 students from across NSW and the ACT, and two from New Zealand — gathered at the School of Physics for an inspiring lecture series, with topics including the burgeoning NASA space program by the great rocket scientist Werner von Braun, and the structure of the universe by renowned cosmologist Sir Hermann Bondi. The program’s international flavour grew stronger over the decades, with students travelling to Sydney from Canada, China, India, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, the UK and the USA to meet those selected from every state and territory of Australia. For the last decade five scholarships have been awarded to talented Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students through the ISS Indigenous Scholars Program. While in 1962 the students travelled from home or were billeted in Sydney, today all students stay in university

college accommodation for the entire two-week event. Each day they take part in a diverse program of inspirational talks on the frontiers of science, tours of research labs and hands-on experiments — along with a packed social program — designed not just to fuel their passion for science, but to present the rich possibilities of a scientific career. Through the generosity of hundreds of donors, sponsors, friends and supporters over many years, the Physics Foundation and School of Physics continue to offer the ISS program entirely free of charge to every student.

Honouring Excellence: The International Science SchoolBy Dr Chris Stewart, ISS Program Director

“My motto has always been honouring excellence, and the School has honoured that beautifully.” Harry Messel

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In the early 1950’s, science education in schools in NSW and, for that matter, across Australia and the western world was moribund. Certainly in NSW little, if any, science originating in the 20th century was part of the curriculum while textbooks were few and generally far from uninspiring. The most useful of these, written by Booth and Nicol, was first published in 1931 and had been little changed for thirty years. With few exceptions, the study of physics was restricted to boys; the study of chemistry mostly, but far from entirely, restricted to boys; while botany, geology and biology were generally regarded as suitable sciences for a few girls and even fewer boys.

This situation was anathema to Harry Messel, the new, forward-looking Professor of Physics at the University of Sydney. Fortunately at this very time, the recently appointed Director of Education, Harold Wyndham, had set up a Committee that was charged with making substantial changes to the structure of secondary school education in the State. The Report of this Committee was the basis of significant changes in secondary education.

It was 1964 when the first edition of “The Blue Book”, Science for High School Students, integrating Biology, Chemistry, Geology and Physics in one compulsory four-year course for high school students saw the light of day. A generation of schoolboys and schoolgirls were introduced to science across the board through this famous Book and its (varicoloured) companion volumes.

The new six-year science course was integrated in its first four years and co-ordinated in the last two. It is interesting to note that although secondary school educators across the world had been working towards the development of such a scheme for some years before this, NSW was first in the world to implement it – predating the well-known Physical Science Study Committee (PSSC) and Harvard Project Physics schemes. Harry was proud of this.

In 1968, the Blue Book was adapted for use in the UK.

In the course, traditional deadwood was ruthlessly eliminated and students were to be taken to the ‘frontiers of science’ and shown the ‘big ideas’ that were energising modern science. Not one but a whole series of textbooks were required to cover the scope and breadth of the integrated and co-ordinated science. Harry carried the Science Foundation for Physics into financing this task and publishing the books.

Both visionary and practical: Harry was well aware of inherent problems but enthused to strive unrelentingly for the pursuit of excellence. What he did for school science education was a striking illustration of those qualities.

The book that revolutionised science education By Honorary Professor Brian McInnes, Founding Head of Sydney University Physics Eduation Research Group

“I tried to produce textbooks for the compulsory sciences for the first four years of high school, and then the final two years. This was one of the most difficult and most incredible jobs of my lifetime.” Harry Messel

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It all arose after the failure of a joint venture between the School of Physics and Lockheed Corporation on tracking polar bears at Point Barrow in Alaska. The object of the research was to work on an animal that occupied an extreme environment on land and in the water and saltwater crocodiles became the next cab off the rank.

After examining Melville Island, Harry’s second foray into the wilds of Northern Australia was by a land-based trip to the Goyder River, exploring an area that drains out of the immense Arafura Swamp in central Arnhem Land. It became obvious that if a crocodile research project was to get traction that a research vessel, an aircraft and land bases, would be required.

As was typical of a person who could miraculously raise millions of dollars via phone calls, a research vessel was built to Harry’s specifications and paid for by Ampol Petroleum. A Cessna 206 StationAir aircraft was purchased and a base, at Maningrida, in Arnhem Land, was acquired from the NT Fisheries Department. A new Department of Environmental Physics

was set up and biologist Dr. Grahame Webb took over the initial running of the crocodile project. A major effort was also put into developing a 1.2 GHz solar-powered animal tracking system.

By late 1974 Harry hired three research assistants – Fred Duncan from the University of Sydney; Dan Grace, from USA, and myself from UNSW – to assist in field operations. In 1975 extensive saltwater crocodile surveys were conducted across the northern coastline of the Northern Territory.

From 1976 to 1984 Harry was involved in every crocodile survey of tidal river systems in the NT, the Kimberley Region of WA, and on both the east and west coasts of Cape York Peninsula in Queensland. These surveys involved traversing over 4,500km of tidal river and creek systems, with many repeat visits to the river systems. His work resulted in accurate baseline estimations of saltwater crocodile populations in northern Australia. Mark-recaptures of saltwater crocodiles established baseline spotting percentage fractions

that could be relied upon. The surveys, often in most inhospitable conditions, were undertaken seven days and nights a week, month after month, year after year. The results speak for themselves in a series of twenty books on saltwater crocodile populations.

Harry never shirked any work in Northern Australia. He cleaned the boats, assisted in the capture of over 1,000 crocodiles, provided the impetus to get the animal tracking system perfected, analysed and reanalysed the crocodile survey results, and interacted with the Aboriginal communities – some of whom had only met white people after the Second World War. Through his political contacts, he stopped the slaughter of crocodiles in Australia and commercial whaling at Cheynes Beach in WA. He was also responsible for the appointment of Silas Roberts, the first Chairman of the Northern Land Council, to become the first Aboriginal Magistrate in Australia, and was heavily involved in the protection of what is now known as Kakadu National Park.

The crocodile championBy Dr Graeme Wells, Research Assistant to Professor Harry Messel from 1974 – 1986

At age 50, Professor Harry Messel embarked on a mission that was to become the Crocodile Research Facility in the Northern Territory of Australia.

Harry sharing copies of the survey with an Aboriginal community leader.

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Teaching science and persistence

“Teaching makes me the happiest. It allows me to talk about science and provoke curiosity, wonder and engagement in others. I can go from teaching the immune system to the periodic table to electromagnetic induction in a single day,” Steph says about being a teacher.

She always knew she wanted to become a scientist, but attending the Professor Harry Messel International Science School in 2005 made her realise her passion for physics. The two-week program gave her some insights on the breadth and depth of the subjects studied at the School of Physics, a greater understanding of what physics research looks like in the real world, and a group of friends that she’s still in touch with today. “There aren’t many places where you can tell quantum physics joke and having the whole room laugh,” she recalls of her experience at the ISS.

Steph remembers Harry very fondly. “He loved to tell the ISS students to do physics. He would do so loudly, repeatedly, and with the occasional swear word. In a lecture at ISS 2007, a Big Name Biologist told everyone they should be doing biology. Harry stood up and told everyone he agreed with the biologist. To me this was like hearing that up is down, black is white and 2 + 2 =5. Then Harry continued, ‘You can do Biology, so long as you do Physics first!’ Normality was restored!”

The ISS paved Steph’s path towards studying physics at the University of Sydney. Being part of the Kickstart

Physics team also helped crystallise her career as a high school science teacher.

Studying at the School of Physics was filled with incredible opportunities for Steph, including working with Professor Tim Bedding and Dr Dennis Stello on an asteroseismology project as well as with Professor Peter Robinson and Dr Svetlana Postnova on programming brain dynamics. She also took with her an important life lesson: one should not spend three hours taking measurements at the laboratory without checking if all the equipment is turned on!

When she looks back to the time she was at the University, Steph is astounded by how much she and her friends have grown and changed.

“Three years isn’t really that long, but the things I could do at the end of my degree were light years ahead of what I could do at the start.”

Steph appreciates the social responsibilities that come with teaching, which range from modelling positive behaviour to giving her students the tools to make good decisions on subjects like vaccination and climate change. She would also like her students to realise that they also hold the potential for amazing growth, and that persistence more than anything else is the key to unlocking that potential. This unsurprisingly rings of a famous Messel-ism: all matter consists of atoms; all knowledge – of hard work.

Stephanie Momsen is a science teacher at Kandos High School, a country school 40 kilometres south of Mudgee, NSW. Currently in her first year, she has already been assigned to teach across year levels: 7 to 10 junior science, 11 and 12 senior physics, special education, and sport.

“[Harry] loved to tell the ISS students to do physics. He would do so loudly, repeatedly, and with the occasional swear word.”

By Shiva Ford

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We want to hear your storyWhen you were at School of Physics, did you ever wonder where your studies would take you? What path your career would follow and how you’d get to where you are today? We want to know where your degree has taken you and invite you to share your story with us.

Alumni are vital to our ongoing success and actively contribute to the School’s future; through inspiring future generations; and sharing knowledge and experience.

If you would like to have your story profiled in Physics News and/or on the Physics website, please contact: Tom Gordon on 02 9351 3201 or thomas.gordon@sydney.edu.au

Editor: Shiva Ford Contributors: Contributors: Tim Bedding, Anne Green, Robert Hewitt, Ian Johnston, Brian McInnes, Bruce McKellar, John O’Byrne, Chris Stewart and Graeme Wells

Physics News Contact Shiva Ford School of Physics A28 The University of Sydney NSW 2006 Australia E shiva.ford@sydney.edu.au T +61 2 9036 6188 F + 61 2 9351 7726

− sydney.edu.au/science/physics

Printed with support fromThe University of Sydney Physics Foundation

© The School of Physics, September 2015

PEAC updateIn the last Physics News we introduced you to PEAC – the Physics Equity and Access Committee – which aims to ensure that the School of Physics is a fair and equitable workplace for students and staff. Our work to date can be seen on our web page at

− sydney.edu.au/science/physics/about/equity

Our goal is for the School of Physics to be a leader in the University in actions and initiatives in this area. To that end we have already asked current staff and students about their experiences and perspectives in a survey late last year. That feedback is now being analysed.

Now we are seeking your help, as alumni of the School, to better understand these issues. We would appreciate your perspective on the work environment and culture in the School and in particular, how they might have influenced your future career path. We are also keen to have input on how we might ensure that the School is an inclusive place where everyone feels valued and can do their best work.

Please take 10 minutes to complete the Alumni Survey at www.surveymonkey.com/r/peac-alumni-survey. It is anonymous and we will report back the results, along with the perspectives already provided by people currently in the School.

We also welcome comments directly to the Chairs of the committee, Anne Green and John O’Byrne, via email: equity@physics.usyd.edu.au

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She struggled against abject poverty and prior inadequate preparation to finish first in her Master’s Degree Physics in 1893.

In 1895, Wilhelm Roentgen discovered X-rays. Soon Henri Becquerel found that Uranium emitted “rays” that could fog photographic plates. In April 1898, Marie Curie (now married) discovered that Thorium also emitted these “rays” – and invented the word “radioactivity”. By December, she and her husband, Pierre Curie, had discovered two more radioactive elements – Polonium and Radium. In December 1903, Henri Becquerel and Pierre and Marie Curie were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics.

In 1906, Pierre Curie was killed instantly in a traffic accident. She was invited to take up her husband’s position, and became the first female professor at the University of Paris. In 1910, the “Curie” was defined as a unit of radioactivity.

During WWI, she established the first military radiology centres in the battlefield and set up mobile X-ray vans to go to the injured. The French soldiers called these mobile X-ray vans petites Curies (little Curies).

Marie Curie had a Nobel Prize for her work in X-rays, but no experience with medical uses. So she studied human anatomy, radiology, auto-mechanics and learnt to drive. With her 17-year-old daughter, Irene, they drove to work on the battlefields. Later, Irene and her husband won the 1935 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

Marie Curie died in 1934 of Aplastic Pernicious Anemia, due to radiation exposure. Six decades later, the remains of Pierre and Marie Curie were re-interred in the Pantheon, France’s national mausoleum.

© Karl S. Kruszelnicki Pty Ltd 2015

For more information

School of Physics+61 2 9036 6188shiva.ford@sydney.edu.ausydney.edu.au/science/physics

Produced by the School of Physics, the University of Sydney, September 2015. The University reserves the right to make alterations to any information contained within this publication without notice. CRICOS 00026A

Dr Karl

Madame Curie – the pioneer of radioactivity

WW1 killed about 9 million military and 7 million civilians. Furthermore, over 22 million military were seriously injured or disabled.

This created a huge need for medical care – including “imaging”. X-rays images can easily show bullets, shrapnel, broken bones or pneumonia. Within 18 months of the Great War starting, France had not only built up its X-ray tube industry – but was also supplying its allies. But the X-ray machines of the day were bulky and delicate. They were fine in hospitals – but the carnage on the battlefields demanded mobile X-ray facilities.

Enter Marie Curie, born in 1867 as Marie Sklodowska. Early on, she realized her skills lay in maths and physical sciences. In those unenlightened times, she took her education where she could – maths by mail with her father, chemistry from a chemist in a beet-sugar factory, etc. By 1891, aged 24, she had saved enough to study at University of Paris.

By Dr Karl Kruszelnicki, Julius Sumner Miller Fellow

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