News Archive

What do you know about the School of Physics? The average student would know where the lecture theatres are, where the main entrance is, and the names of most of the current lecturers.

Some might even know all the staff, might know how long the School 's been around. But do you know when research began in the Department? How long the current Physics building has been around? Who the first professors were? Senior Honorary Research Fellow Professor John Robins certainly does. He has written a book about it.

The seeds for the publication, History of the Physics Department of The University of Western Australia: The first 80 years, 1913 to 1993 were planted when he heard two students in the Physics atrium saying: "Why are the lecture theatres called the Ross Theatre and the Clews Theatre?" John thought "My gosh, these students don't even know that they are the names of our first professors."

John's original solution had been to publish a series of short ‘issues' about events of historical interest in the life of the Department on the School's website; figuring people were more likely to read an occasional eight to 10 page article than a 150-page book. However, after he was requested to turn this material into a book, he admitted: "The fun stopped, and the hard work began."

John had to do a lot of research on the School's history: "The buildings that had been occupied, the staff that had been through, the research that had been done, all of the sorts of things that people want to know when they read a history book."

The book, which will hopefully enlighten alumni, students and even the general public about the School and its origins, has 10 chapters depicting the first 80 years of the School (which was then called a Department), followed by 17 appendices describing various events of interest. These appendices, interestingly enough, have been compiled mainly from his original articles. The centenary edition also contains an epilogue written by Professor Ian McArthur on the 20 years between 1993 and 2013.

John  is a man with long-standing connections to Physics at UWA. His particular area of expertise is Surface Physics, which he describes as the study, on an atomic scale, of what happens at the surfaces of solids. It is the science behind the development of multilayer materials, and can be roughly defined as the study of physical changes that occur at interfaces. He explains that his fascination with Physics began out of curiosity: "I was interested in why things happen, and that is what Physics is all about; understanding what makes things happen."

After completing his undergraduate degree in 1956, majoring in Physics and Mathematics, John did his PhD in Physics before going overseas as a post-doctoral fellow, first spending two years at the National Research Council of Canada, located in Ottawa. He then took a 3-year appointment as a Research Associate at Cornell University in Ithaca, USA, before returning to UWA as a Queen Elizabeth II Fellow. Two years later he joined the staff of the Physics Department in 1966, retiring in 1994. He also spent 9 years serving as both President and Vice-President of the International Union for Vacuum Science, Technique and Applications (IUVSTA), an international organisation whose Executive Committee, with representatives from 30 nations, meets twice per year. He was the first President not located in America or Europe.

According to John, "the best thing about Physics is discovery. Being able to discover how everything works using only a limited number of hypotheses."

(This was written with the help of Annie Jiang and Serena Li of St Hilda's Anglican School for Girls  (Physics Science Journalist Work Experience Program.)