2009 and earlier video archive
Public lectures in physics
2009 lectures
Professor Reinhard Genzel, Max-Planck Institute for Extraterre: The supermassive black hole at the centre of the galaxy
Evidence has been accumulating for several decades that many galaxies harbour central mass concentrations that may be in the form of black holes with masses between a few million to a few billion times the mass of the Sun. I will discuss measurements over the last decade, employing adaptive optics imaging and spectroscopy on large ground-based telescopes that prove the existence of such a massive black hole in the centre of our Milky Way, beyond any reasonable doubt. These data also provide key insights into its properties and environment. Future interferometric studies of the galactic centre black hole promise to be able to test gravity in its strong field limit. I will also briefly discuss the cosmological evolution of massive black holes.
Dr Michael Brown, Monash University: The Giant Magellan Telescope 400 + 10 years after Galileo
The Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) is one of the proposed next generation of extremely large optical telescopes. It will have a main mirror consisting of seven segments each of 8 metres in diameter - so it will have seven times the collecting area and three times the spatial resolution of today's best telescopes. GMT will be used to study planets around other stars, the formation of stars from clouds of gas and dust, the assembly of the first galaxies in the early universe, and the intriguing mysteries surrounding black holes, dark matter and dark energy. Australia is aiming for a 10% share in the GMT, which is being built by an international consortium also involving major US institutions and Korea. It will be located on one of the world's best-observing sites at Las Campanas Observatory, in the foothills of the Andes mountains in northern Chile. The GMT is currently in the design development stage and construction will take a further 10 years at an estimated cost of US$600M. Together with the Square Kilometre Array radio telescope, GMT will give Australian astronomers access to the world's best research facilities.
Professor David Jamieson: Part 1 - Galileo's Invention of the astronomical telescope and his remarkable discoveries - moons, stars and new planet
The year 2009 has been declared the international year of astronomy to commemorate and celebrate the 400th anniversary of the first time Galileo turned his newly invented telescope to the heavens. This lecture looks at Galileo’s technological breakthrough with the invention of his astronomical telescope and investigates the avalanche of discoveries and knowledge that it produced. Some of these discoveries are well known like the discovery of the moons of Jupiter and the lunar landscape. But there is a surprise drawn from the pages of Galileo's logbooks of 1612 and 1613. He notes the position of a "fixed star" that does not exist in any star chart because it is the planet Neptune which Galileo observed 234 years before its official discovery. Did he know this "fixed star" was a planet? His notes suggest he saw Neptune move and computer simulations show the precision of his observations. This lecture will review the evidence.
Professor David Jamieson: Part 2 - Galileo's Invention of the astronomical telescope and his remarkable discoveries - moons, stars and new planet
The year 2009 has been declared the international year of astronomy to commemorate and celebrate the 400th anniversary of the first time Galileo turned his newly invented telescope to the heavens. This lecture looks at Galileo’s technological breakthrough with the invention of his astronomical telescope and investigates the avalanche of new discoveries and knowledge that it produced. Some of these discoveries are well known like the discovery of the moons of Jupiter and the lunar landscape. But there is a surprise drawn from the pages of Galileo's logbooks of 1612 and 1613. He notes the position of a "fixed star" that does not exist in any star chart because it is the planet Neptune which Galileo observed 234 years before its official discovery. Did he know this "fixed star" was a planet? His notes suggest he saw Neptune move and computer simulations show the precision of his observations. This lecture will review the evidence.
2007 lectures
Professor Lloyd Hollenberg: A Quantum Leap for Computers-quantum information on the horizon
Quantum Mechanics is the modern theory of the subatomic world, and in an ongoing revolution in our understanding of this reality, the science of quantum information processing has emerged. Around the world, teams are now racing to understand and harness the awesome information processing power of quantum mechanical systems to design and construct a Quantum Computer. This lecture looks at this revolutionary concept – what a quantum computer physically is, and the extraordinary computational power it is capable of.
Professor David Jamieson: Breakthroughs, hoaxes, frauds and delusions - recent breakthroughs that weren't
Reports of transistors made from plastic and super heavy atoms never seen before created a sensation. Unfortunately, these discoveries were found to exist only in the imagination of their discoverers. Like poly water, N-rays, cold fusion and perpetual motion machines from the past, they have vanished into oblivion. This lecture looks at recent breakthroughs that weren’t and how we tell the difference between real and pathological physics.
Professor Geoff Taylor: The Large Hadron Collider - our window on the big bang
On the border of France and Switzerland, an accelerator is nearing completion that will replicate the conditions that existed shortly after the Big Bang that started our Universe. This lecture looks at the advanced technology of the accelerator and the fundamental building blocks of nature it will reveal.
Dr Andrew Melatos: Hidden Mass in Cosmic Collisions - the first pictures of dark matter
The Chandra X-ray telescope has, for the first time, revealed sensational images providing dramatic images that reveal the dark matter distribution in two colliding galaxies. Dark matter has long been required to explain the way stars orbit inside galaxies and new images provide additional dramatic confirmation that dark matter exists and behaves differently from ordinary matter. This lecture looks at the implications of this discovery.
2004 lectures
Professor David Jamieson: The 19th-century world wide web: the electric telegraph, relativity and the eccentric Oliver Heaviside
Professor Ray Volkas: The ultra-violet catastrophe: the red-hot emergence of quantum mechanics
The light emitted from a red-hot iron proved an intractable problem for 19th-century physics. Conventional theories predict hot objects glow brightly in the ultraviolet which doesn’t happen. A strange solution to the problem due to Max Planck was to unravel the cosy world of 19th C physics. This looks at the emergence of the quantum from the ultraviolet catastrophe.
2001 lectures
Associate Professor David Jamieson: Out of Africa: a 2 billion-year-old reactor
Fermi's experimental nuclear reactor, constructed in the 1940s under a sports stadium in Chicago, is widely described as initiating the world's first nuclear chain reaction. But the fossil remains of a natural reactor have been discovered in Africa that operated 2 billion years ago. David Jamieson describes what was found and how it worked.
2000 lectures
Professor Geoff Opat: Civilisation Transformed - The Impact of Quantum Mechanics
The year 2000 marks the centennial of the founding of quantum mechanics by Max Planck. The profound change in human thought that followed its introduction transformed the whole of science: physical, chemical, biological, and technological. The Civilisation of the Twenty-First Century would be totally unrecognisable without it.
Dr David Jamieson: The Promise of the Quantum Computer: New Beads on the Abacus
Quantum computing promises remarkable advances in computational power for certain problems that are impractical on classical computers. In a computer operating by the strange rules of quantum mechanics, the processor exists in all possible states simultaneously. Construction of a quantum computer presents some formidable challenges but there is no shortage of ideas.
Dr Chris Chantler: Quantum Electrodynamics: The most accurate theory in the world
Controversy may surround the different interpretations of quantum mechanics, but there is no dispute about the accuracy of the theory. Quantum electrodynamics (QED) explains how light interacts with matter. Recent experiments with lasers have shown that predictions of QED are accurate to one part in 10000000000000! This lecture will look at the origins of the theory, the basic ideas behind it, and the challenges we face today.
