Harley Wood public lecture on Monday 2 July
Dr Harley Wood in front of the astrographic telescope at Sydney Observatory in 1965, painting copyright George A Daniel
On the evening of Monday 2 July 2007 Professor Matthew Bailes of Swinbourne University will present the annual Harley Wood lecture at Macquarie University. This annual public lecture is sponsored by the Astronomical Society of Australia in honour of its first president. The talk will be from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm at the Mason Theatre, Building E7B.
Millisecond Pulsars and Einstein’s Universe
Using 3D virtual reality technologies Professor Bailes will explain how astronomers are using giant radio telescopes to discover millisecond pulsars, objects only 20km in diameter, but with masses some 500,000 times that of Earth. These stars rotate up to 700 times a second, and emit powerful beams of radio emission. Australian astronomers are using millisecond pulsars to test Einstein’s laws of gravitation and search for gravitational waves produced by inspiralling supermassive black holes. This talk is aimed at the general public and understandable by children and adults alike. The impact of exciting new telescopes currently being designed for construction in Western Australia will also be discussed.
The lecture is free and all are welcome. A flier is available.
Who was Harley Wood? He was Government Astronomer and director of Sydney Observatory from 1943 to 1974. He was one of the most successful and significant of the government astronomers in the history of the Observatory and was widely known among the public and among the astronomical community. In 1965, the year that George Daniels painted the above portrait, Sydney University awarded him the degree of Doctor of Science. From the following year until 1968 he was the inaugural president of the Astronomical Society of Australia.
Dr Wood was a member of the National Committee for Astronomy and its chair from 1966 to 1974. He was also closely involved in the organisation of the first International Astronomical Union General Assembly to be held in Australia in 1973. He participated in the search for a site for a large telescope in Australia that led to the location of the Anglo-Australian Telescope as well as other telescopes at Siding Spring near Narrabri in NSW.
Harley Wood passionately fought the NSW Government decision to abandon astronomical research at Sydney Observatory in 1982 and died two years later on 26 June 1984.
