Royal Society of NSW News & Events

“The wonders of the Hubble Space Telescope”   Professor Michael Burton  School of Physics, UNSW Friday 21 August 2015University of Sydney Business School CBD campus, Level 17, 133 Castlereagh St., Sydney 25 years ago, on 24 April 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope was launched into Earth orbit. Aside, perhaps, from Galileo’s origi...

“Big science and big history: From the big bang to us”   Professor David Christian   Director of Big History Institute   Macquarie University Thursday 20 August 2015University of Sydney Business School CBD campus, Level 17, 133 Castlereagh St., Sydney Big History examines our past, explains our present, and imagines ou...

“Aboriginal astronomy and the clash of cultures”   Dr Ragbir Bhathal Tuesday 18 August 2015University of Sydney Business School CBD campus, Level 17, 133 Castlereagh St., Sydney The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been observing the night sky for thousands of years. In that period of time they named the celestial objects...

“Failing to learn: using artificial worlds to teach science in a new way”   Professor Michael Jacobson  Professor of Education  University of Sydney Friday 14 August 2015University of Sydney Business School CBD campusLevel 17, 133 Castlereagh Street, Sydney We are going through a major transition in our ability to unde...

“The science of spontaneity: Fred Astaire as consummate craftsman”   Dr Kathleen Riley Wednesday 3 June 2015Union, University and Schools Club, 25 Bent Street, Sydney This talk focused on the science behind Fred Astaire's apparent effortlessness, his ability to make something that was technically complex and endlessly rehearsed look easy ...

“From quantum devices to quantum machines”   James Colless  ARC Centre of Excellence for Engineered  Quantum Systems (EQuS),  University of Sydney  Jak Kelly Award winner for 2015 Wednesday 2 December 2015Union, University and Schools Club, 25 Bent Street, Sydney The Jak Kelly Award was created in h...

“Big history”   Professor David Christian  Director, The Big History Institute  Macquarie University Wednesday 4 November 2015Union, University and Schools Club, 25 Bent Street, Sydney Since the beginnings of human history, taking stories from the past and synthesising them has delivered far more than the sum of the pa...

Royal Society of NSW scholarship winners 2015 Wednesday 4 February 2015Union, University and Schools Club, 25 Bent Street, Sydney Melanie LairdSchool of Biological Sciences, University of Sydney Melanie is a University Medallist in her second year of a PhD under the supervision of Professor Michael Thompson, studying reproduction in marsupials. Rut...

  “Australian energy policy”  Professor Robert Clark AO FAA DistFRSN  Chair of Energy Strategy and Policy, UNSW Thursday 25 February 2016 Hamilton and Parkes Rooms, Level 47, MLC Centre, King and Castlereagh Streets, Sydney Professor Robert Clark has had a distinguished career, having headed a research group in experim...

Note: the OGM number 1239 is not used for administrative reasons. Royal Society of New South Wales Scholarship presentations The scholarship winners with the President of the Royal Society of NSW, Dr Donald HectorL-R: Yevgeny Stadnik, Adam Dudek, Don Hector, Charles Forster Wednesday 3 February 2016Union, University and Schools Club, 25 Bent Street...

   “Royal Society of NSW – relevance in the 21st   century”   Dr Donald Hector FRSN   President Wednesday 6 April 2016Union, University and Schools Club, 25 Bent Street, Sydney Donald Hector was President of the Royal Society of NSW for four years from 2012 to 2016. This is an excerpt from his ...

“How to win an IgNobel Prize and other adventures in communicating science”   Dr Len Fisher  Visiting Fellow in Physics,  University of Bristol Wednesday 2 March 2016Union, University and Schools Club, 25 Bent Street, Sydney This talk in a fun and interesting way was about how scientists go about their work. In 1999, D...

“Royal” not “Philosophical” - W.B. Clarke's Inaugural Address to the Royal Society of NSW   Dr Bob Young   Associate Professor of Geoscience (ret’d),   University of Wollongong Wednesday 6 July 2016Union, University and Schools Club, 25 Bent Street, Sydney The Royal Society of New South Wales is 150 years old this year...

 “The curious case of the scientist in cinema: how  Indiana Jones turns out to be the bad guy!”  Professor Peter Hiscock  Tom Austen Brown Professor of Australian  Archaeology, University of Sydney Wednesday 1 June 2016Union, University & Schools Club, 25 Bent Street, Sydney Uplifting music and the s...

Annual Black-Tie Dinner, Distinguished Fellow's Lecture and presentation of the Society's 2015 awards Guest of honour: The Society's Vice-Regal Patron, His Excellency General The Honourable David Hurley AC DSC (ret'd), Governor of New South Wales The Distinguished Fellow's Lecture delivered by Emeritus Professor Eugenie Lumbers AM DistFRSN Wed...

"The cervical cancer vaccine" Professor Ian Frazer, Director of the Centre for Immunology and Cancer Research, University of Queensland and Princess Alexandra Hospital, Brisbane, and 2006 Australian of the Year Wednesday 1 November 2006, 6.30 for 7 pm Conference Room 1, Darlington Centre, City Road ABSTRACT About 25% of cancers are initiated by inf...

"Pandemics, bird flu and the globalisation of fear" Professor Peter Curson, Macquarie University Wednesday 4 October 2006, 6.30 for 7 pm Conference Room 1, Darlington Centre, City Road ABSTRACT Currently, the world is experiencing two defining events - a panzootic or global outbreak of bird flu, and a pandemic of human reaction and panic. H5N1 is s...

"The frontier of measurement: leading-edge standards for length and time" Dr Bruce Warrington, Head, Time and Frequency Group, National Measurement Institute, Lindfield, Sydney Wednesday 6 September 2006, 6.30 for 7 pm Conference Room 1, Darlington Centre, City Road ABSTRACT Metrology, the science of measurement, is a dynamic field of research. Adv...

"The overshadowed centenary - the discovery of the pinch effect in 1905" A/Prof. Brian James, School of Physics, Sydney University. Wednesday 2 August 2006, 6.30 for 7 pm Conference Room 1, Darlington Centre, City Road ABSTRACT Attempts to harness the enormous nuclear energy available from fusing hydrogen into helium have gone on for half a century...

Asian honey bees: biology, conservation and human interactions A/Prof. Ben Oldroyd, School of Biological Sciences, Sydney University. Wednesday 5 July 2006, 6.30 for 7 pm Conference Room 1, Darlington Centre, City Road ABSTRACT The familiar European hive bee, Apis mellifera, has long dominated honey bee research. But in the last 15 years, teams in ...