SCIENCE AT THE SHINE DOME canberra 6 - 8 may 2009
Career awards
Thursday, 7 May 2009
Professor Bruce McKellar FAA
Professor of Theoretical Physics, University of Melbourne
Bruce McKellar submitted his PhD thesis to the University of Sydney in 1964, and was appointed as a lecturer there in 1965. His postdoctoral position in 1966 to 1968 was at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, while on extended leave from Sydney. After his return to Sydney he was appointed to the chair of theoretical physics at Melbourne, taking up the chair in 1972 and retiring at the end of 2007. He was elected to the Australian Academy of Science in 1987. His previous medals from the Academy are the Pawsey Medal (1973) and the Lyle Medal (1991). He has contributed to the University of Melbourne as chair of the school of physics and as dean of science, and to the Academy as Secretary for Physical Sciences, Vice-President and Foreign Secretary.
The importance of being almost symmetric
When they first learn about the existence of positrons and other antimatter, many people are led to questions like:
How is it that the matter and antimatter created in the big bang did not annihilate each other?
- Why do we see only matter around us, and indeed as far as we can look in the universe?
- Since we are made of matter, why are we here?
In 1968 Andrei Sakharov provided the framework that lets us attack these questions, and explain the matter asymmetry of the universe, but to date his program has not been successfully implemented. Bruce will put the question of the apparent asymmetry between matter and antimatter into the context of other related asymmetries – the asymmetry between left and right handedness and the asymmetry between going forwards and going backwards in time. All of these are clearly large asymmetries when looked at on a large scale, and some are even large on a microscopic scale. He will explain the progress that has been made towards understanding these asymmetries in terms of our understanding of fundamental theories of particle physics. He will also highlight questions we don’t yet understand, the answers to which will set out the direction of future progress towards answers to the above questions.
