Professor David Blair
OLD GUILDFORDIANS
Prized for
Nobel pursuits
Professor David Blair
Emeritus Professor of Physics , The University of Western Australia
A world-leading physicist , author and Emeritus Professor of Physics at The University of Western Australia , David Blair recently celebrated with his team for their involvement in the 2017 Nobel Prize-winning detection of gravitational waves , in which they played a vital role through the provision of key technologies for high-powered laser gravitational wave detectors . For the discovery of gravitational waves , Professor Blair also shared the 2016 Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics with a large team of international collaborators .
A scientist of extreme talent that could have easily been led abroad , Professor Blair has remained to ensure that cutting-edge physics is being conducted right here in Western Australia . An example of this is the Australian International Gravitational Research Centre at Gingin that Professor Blair founded , a site that is now the WA Node of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery .
Professor David Blair ( St / Wb 1961-1963 )
Professor Blair ’ s many achievements were honoured at the Annual Dinner of the Beverley & Districts Combined Public Schools Old Boys ’ Association on Friday , 6 April 2018 . As guest speaker , David shared the astounding journey leading to the detection of gravitational waves .
Professor Blair paid tribute to James Clerk Maxwell , a mathematical physicist whose equations were known as the second great unification in physics , the first being from Isaac Newton ’ s work . Maxwell demonstrated
how electric and magnetic fields travel though space as waves at the speed of light with his 1865 publication A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field . Maxwell ’ s theory of electromagnetic waves was first conclusively proven by Heinrich Rudolf Hertz , with electromagnetic radiation or Hertzian waves later becoming known as radio waves and harnessing these waves lead to the development of technologies such a wireless radio telegraphy , radio broadcasting , television , global telecommunication networks , and the signal carrier supporting today ’ s wireless devices .
In 1915 the revered theoretical physicist , Albert Einstein , discovered a new way to describe gravity with his Theory of General Relativity . Einstein hypothesised that gravity was the distortion of space-time as it warps and curves around objects . The bigger the object , the greater the distortion of spacetime . A physicist and astronomer named Karl Schwarzschild , while serving on the Russian front for the German Army during World War I , read Einstein ’ s equations and Schwarzschild realised they predicted black holes . Further to this , Einstein learned that his equations also predicted waves of gravity .
This image shows gravitational waves produced by a binary system of black holes that are bound to each other .
The Theory of General Relativity meant that the light from a star would curve as it passed through the Sun ’ s gravitational field . To prove Einstein ’ s predictions , scientists postulated that light beams could be photographed in the absence of light from the Sun , such as during a total solar eclipse . The remote Wallal Downs
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