 This
annual report covers a year where Physics, as a discipline, was in
the spot-light world wide. It was the World Year of Physics 2005,
in which the 100th anniversary of Einstein’s “Miraculous
Year” was celebrated and used as a focus to raise the public
awareness for physics and, more generally, the physical sciences.
As one of the major physics schools in the Sydney region and in Australia,
it was important we played a leading role in maximizing the impact
of this special year, both locally and nationally, and I am very proud
of the School’s contributions and achievements, many of which
are highlighted in this report.
In reflecting upon the School’s numerous and diverse activities
over this important year, two important points should be highlighted.
Firstly, we were reminded of the great fascination and interest
that the general public has in physics and its famous practitioners.
The great success of the School’s series of special “Einstein
Year” public lectures demonstrated the enormous audience that
exists out beyond our normal client base (that is, our students)
that is eager to learn about physics, be confronted by its key issues,
and to vigorously debate them! Secondly, we learnt about the great
potential of the internet, when used in innovative ways, to educate
and excite people about physics on a global basis. The “Einstein
Light” and “Music Acoustics” interactive websites
developed by George Hatsidimitris, John Smith, John Tann and Joe
Wolfe within the School have been an outstanding success in this
regard, and recognized as such through both winning Scientific American’s
Science and Technology Web Awards, and being recommended by journals
such Science and Physics Today.
In addition to its “Einstein’s Year” achievements,
the School continued to distinguish itself in its core areas of
research and teaching, and to expand its linkages both nationally
and internationally. The publication in Nature of research on Australia’s
iconic instrument the didjeridu, the completion of a seminal book
on lattice model calculation methods and their application to many
areas of particle and condensed matter physics, and the award of
the 2005 Australian Academy of Science’s Pawsey Medal to Professor
Michelle Simmons, are just a number of the highlights contained
in this report.
Unfortunately the School came increasingly under the spot-light
of senior management within the university, due to its financial
difficulties. It faced considerable pressure to reduce the size
of its staff complement, the first phase of which was through voluntary
retirements. The year ended with the threat of staff losses still
looming, and the School likely to undergo significant contraction
in size over the next 2-3 years.
Professor Warrick Couch
Head of School
June 2006
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