Australian Physicists Research Articles

General Groves’s “Inevitable War with Russia”: Joseph Rotblat’s and Mark Oliphant’s Existential Crises

ABSTRACT In 1985, Nobel Prize–winning physicist Sir Joseph Rotblat recalled a conversation with the Manhattan Project head, General Leslie Groves, in Los Alamos in 1944. Groves, Rotblat contends, insisted that the primary reason to deploy the atomic bomb was to use it “to subdue the Soviets”. Historian Barton Bernstein suggests that Rotblat’s recollection is a misremembering induced by postwar revisionist historical interpretations. However, a conversation between Groves, Australian physicist Sir Mark Oliphant, and Radiation Laboratory director Ernest Lawrence in 1944 at the University of California in Berkeley, recounted in an explosive memorandum by Oliphant, corroborates Rotblat’s account. While Groves’s remarks may have been flippant, the fear of an impending arms race caused both Rotblat and Oliphant to pivot their thinking from creating nuclear weapons to campaigning for their elimination. Whereas Rotblat’s motives are seen as altruistic, Oliphant’s are considered self-serving. This article strives to reorient this historical debate by arguing that Oliphant, like Rotblat, was similarly a “keeper of the nuclear conscience”.

On the Social Shaping of Quantum Technologies: An Analysis of Emerging Expectations Through Grant Proposals from 2002\u20132020

The term ‘quantum technology’ was first popularised by an Australian physicist in the mid-1990s. These technologies make use of the properties of quantum physics and are being developed and invested across the world, yet this emerging technology is understudied in science and technology studies. This article investigates the emergence of the notion of ‘quantum technologies’ and examines the expectations shaping this field through an analysis of research grants funded by a national research funder, the Australian Research Council between 2002 and 2020. I examine how ‘quantum technology’ and ‘quantum computing’ have come to dominate claims and expectations surrounding research in quantum science. These expectations do more than inform the scientific goals of the field. They also provide an overarching, uniting rhetoric for individual projects and people and shape the uses imagined for quantum technologies. This analysis shows how claims for this emerging technology draw on ‘breakthrough’ metaphors to engage researchers and marshal investment and concludes by highlighting the need for increased clarity regarding expectations for quantum technologies.

Science communication and mediatised environmental conflict: A cautionary tale.

When Australian physicist, Peter Ridd, lost his tenured position with James Cook University, he was called a 'whistleblower', 'contrarian academic' and 'hero of climate science denial'. In this article, we examine the events surrounding his dismissal to better understand the role of science communication in organised climate change scepticism. We discuss the sophistry of his complaint to locate where and through what processes science communication becomes political communication. We argue that the prominence of scientists and scientific knowledge in debates about climate change locates science, as a social sphere or fifth pillar in Hutchins and Lester's theory of mediatised environmental conflict. In doing so, we provide a model to better understand how science communication can be deployed during politicised debates.

When is enough enough? Accurate measurement and the integrity of scientific research.

At a meeting of the Physical Society of London in 1925 participants expressed their concerns regarding a recent suggestion by the Australian physicist T. H. Laby for replicating the established value of the mechanical equivalent of heat. This rather controversial discussion about the value of redetermining this numerical fact brings to light different understandings of the moral economy of accuracy in scientific work; it signals a distinctive new stage in the historical understanding of accuracy and precision and the moral integrity in conducting research.

5 Big ideas for fusion power: Startups, universities, and major companies are vying to commercialize a nuclear fusion reactor

THE JOKE HAS BEEN AROUND almost as long as the dream: Nuclear fusion energy is 30 years away…and always will be. But now, more than 80 years after Australian physicist Mark Oliphant first observed deuterium atoms fusing and releasing dollops of energy, it may finally be time to update the punch line.

Doppler Comparative Measurements in the Reconstruction of Limbs with Flaps and Grafts

Abstract Doppler technique was first described by the Australian physicist and mathematician Christian Doppler. Doppler effect is defined as a reflection of high frequency sound waves of different frequency when they come in contact with the movable structure in the blood vessel. Waves that go to transducers are coded red, while waves that move away from the transducer are coded blue. Doppler main types can be classified as following: continuous wave (CW) Doppler, spectral Doppler, color Doppler and Power Doppler color. The study was realizedat the University Clinic for Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. It is a randomized prospective study. During the study two groups of 30 patientseach were formed. Each patient was required a permission for reconstructive surgery procedure and an informed consent for participation in the study. For all patients a specially designed questionnaire (non-standardized) was filled out. 1. First (I) group of patients treated with flaps. In this group a type of reconstructive technique with skin or complex flapshas been applied. 2. Second group (II) of patients treated with grafts (split thickness grafts). In this group applied reconstruction comprised application of skin grafts with partial thickness. The study included patients with defects of the skin and soft tissues, whohad an indication for reconstructive surgery procedure. Exclusion criteria of patients for participation in the study were: children under 14 years of age, adults over 75 years, people with systemic diseases that can affect the results of reconstructive intervenetions and patients who have without periosteum bone-like surface defect as contraindication for skin grafting. The results of the reconstructive procedures according to the objectives set were investigated clinically into three time periods: preoperative, postoperative day 7 and day 30 postoperatively. The following investigations were carried out: determination of the circulation levels by means of Doppler; determination of the levels of limbs circulation is distal to the site of reconstruction in the pre-and postoperative period (day 7 and day 30); For the evaluation of blood flow the following parameters were used: • PSV-Peak systolic velocity • PI - Pulsatility index RI - Resistance indexPI and RI were calculated using the formula: • PI = PSV - EDV / Vmean • RI = PSV - EDV / PSV EDV indicates the flow velocity in late diastole and V mean, the average speed of blood flow through the artery. By assessment of arterial status before and after surgery through the analysis ofvascular waves at different locations of the vascular tree of the upper and lower extremities, we registered significant difference between the two examined groups, which speaks in favor of the use of flaps in reconstruction of the lower limbs.

The rush to accelerate: Early stages of nuclear physics research in Australia

ABSTRACT From the mid-1930s, Australian physicists, though few in number, sought to join the exciting new field of research then opening up in experimental nuclear physics. Such research was already, however, largely based on the use of particle accelerators, and to acquire one demanded money and resources on a scale unprecedented in Australian scientific experience. Australian attempts during the period 1935–1960 to build accelerators or to acquire them by other means are described. The difficulties that Australian physicists faced in this connection and the strategies by which they sought to overcome them are considered. Three stages of development are identified: an initial period of small-scale initiatives in the 1930s, a postwar period of “do-it-yourself” accelerator building, and finally a growing practice of buying machines “off the shelf” from commercial suppliers.

General Relativity in the English-speaking World: The Contributions of Henry L. Brose

The story of how the theory of general relativity found its way into the English speaking world during the Great War has often been told: it is dominated by the towering figure of the Cambridge astronomer Arthur Stanley Eddington, who (in 1916, and through the good services of the Dutch physicist Willem de Sitter) received copies of the papers Einstein had presented to the Berlin Academy in 1915. Eddington engaged in promoting the new theory, and in order to put one of its predictions — the bending of light in a gravitational field — to the test, he arranged for the famous expeditions to observe the eclipse of 29 May 1919 to be mounted, the results of which, presented in November of the same year, were the major breakthrough of general relativity and provoked a public interest unprecedented in the whole history of science. But a history of general relativity in the English-speaking world would be thoroughly incomplete if it did not take into account the contributions made by another, nowadays almost forgotten but at that time probably the most prolific and most dedicated of its popularizers, the Australian physicist and translator Henry L. Brose. Largely overlooked in recent accounts of the history of general relativity, Brose's rendering into English of a series of excellent German works on the theory was decisive for its understanding in the Anglo-Saxon world. The texts he chose (including Moritz Schlick's Space and Time in Contemporary Physics and Hermann Weyl's Space, Time, Matter) were among the first and most important that had so far appeared on the subject, and their English translations were published at a time when accounts of what was to be called 'one of the greatest of achievements in the history of human thought' were scarce and badly needed in Britain. Also, it will become clear from a closer look at both Brose's biography and the tense political situation between Britain and Germany shortly after the Great War, that hardly any of those works would have made its way into England so promptly (if at all) if not for Brose's enormous personal efforts and dedication. This paper retraces Brose's role as a translator and promotor of general relativity in its early days, thus shedding light on the mechanisms of knowledge transfer during and after the First World War.

High-school physics: any questions?

Throughout the world, high-school physics is perceived as being under threat. This article describes the approaches taken by two Australian physicists in trying to alleviate some of the universal problems associated with the high-school-college interface.

Ultrasonic Differential Diagnosis of Tumors

This book, edited by an Australian physicist and a Japanese internist, contains 20 chapters written by 13 Japanese and nine Australian authors, with other authors from the United States and the United Kingdom. The first 58 pages, which concern the physics of ultrasound, are heavy going for most surgeons, but part II, concerning the ultrasonographic diagnosis of tumors by their sites (breast, thyroid, liver, etc), strikes a chord more familiar and practical to the clinician. A unique chapter by Fukuda deals with the use of an ultrasonic transducer mounted on an endoscope or laparoscope. A knowledge of normal anatomy as visualized by ultrasonography is assumed, which may be slightly presumptuous for some older clinical surgeons. The thrust of the book, as its title implies, concerns ultrasonographic imaging, and little space is given to alternate radiologic or imaging techniques such as nuclear medicine or computed tomographic scanning. At the end of

Employment Trends: Australian physicists' choice

Employment Trends: Australian physicists' choice

Conference of Australian Physicists and Astronomers

THE fourth conference of Australian physicists and astronomers, arranged by local members of the Institute of Physics, was held in Melbourne on August 15-18, and was attended by fifty delegates from various parts of the Commonwealth. In his presidential address on “The Place and Value of Physical Science in the Modern State”, Prof. Kerr Grant stressed the value of the study of pure science as a training for orderly and objective thinking. He showed that every advance in applied science is based on discoveries made in pure science, and urged the cultivation of scientific investigation for its own sake. An address on “Contemporary Physics” was given by Dr. H. S. W. Massey and a discussion took place on the organisation of the observatories in Australia (see NATURE of April 23, 1932), a question which had been referred to the conference by the Commonwealth Government. A description of the results obtained in the investigation of the effects of fading and of atmospherics in the reception of broadcast signals was given by the staff of the Radio Research Board. Because of the high incidence of thunderstorms in Australia, atmospheric interference is an important problem in broadcasting, and the results obtained with two cathode ray direction-finding stations and a narrow sector continuous recorder over a period of more than two years are yielding information of considerable value. A number of papers were also read describing research work in progress on the motions of electrons in gases, on the thermal conductivities of gases, on long wave-length X-rays, and on the oscillations produced by a valve oscillator. The radon purification plant in use in the Commonwealth Radium Laboratory, and that proposed for use in Perth, were described and discussed.

Conference of Australian Physicists

A CONFERENCE of physicists and astronomers, arranged by members of the Institute of Physios resident in Australia, was held at Canberra on Aug. 15–18, and was attended by nearly forty research workers. This conference arose from a desire to hold more frequent meetings of physicists than are provided by the biennial meetings of the Australian Association for the Advancement of Science. It was felt that the conference had met a real need, and it was decided to hold a similar meeting in Sydney or Melbourne during August 1929. Advantage was also taken of the occasion to hold the fourth general meeting of Australian members of the Institute of Physics, under the chairmanship of Prof. A. D. Ross, of the University of West Australia. Meetings were also held during the conference of the Radio Research Board and the Geophysical Prospecting Committee. The conference was organised by Profs. Laby, Ross, Vonwiller, and Dr. Duffield, while Drs. G. H. Briggs and E. O. Hercus acted as secretaries; arrangements for the next meeting are in the same hands.