The Australian Institute of Physics was established in 1963, when it replaced the Australian Branch of the British

Institute of Physics The Institute of Physics (IOP) is a UK-based not-for-profit learned society and professional body that works to advance physics education, physics research, research and applied physics, application. It was founded in 1874 and has a worldwide ...

based in London.''A History of the Physics Department of the University of Queensland'' Emeritus Professor H C Webster, 31 March 1977, Accessed 6 February 2012
The purpose of the institute is to promote the role of physics in research, education, industry and the community. The AIP publishes ''Australian Physics'' (ISSN 1036-3831) since 1963. Every two years, the Institute organises a national congress, the latest being held in December 2024 in Melbourne.

Organisation

The institute has branches in each of the six

Australian states The states and territories are the national subdivisions and second level of government of Australia. The states are partially sovereign, administrative divisions that are self-governing polities, having ceded some sovereign rights to the feder ...

, and topical groups in the following areas: *

Atomic Physics Atomic physics is the field of physics that studies atoms as an isolated system of electrons and an atomic nucleus. Atomic physics typically refers to the study of atomic structure and the interaction between atoms. It is primarily concerned wit ...

and Molecular Physics *

Condensed Matter Physics Condensed matter physics is the field of physics that deals with the macroscopic and microscopic physical properties of matter, especially the solid and liquid State of matter, phases, that arise from electromagnetic forces between atoms and elec ...

and Materials Physics *

Nuclear Physics Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter. Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies th ...

and

Particle Physics Particle physics or high-energy physics is the study of Elementary particle, fundamental particles and fundamental interaction, forces that constitute matter and radiation. The field also studies combinations of elementary particles up to the s ...

Physics Education Physics education or physics teaching refers to the education methods currently used to teach physics. The occupation is called physics educator or physics teacher. Physics education research refers to an area of pedagogical research that seek ...

Quantum Information Quantum information is the information of the state of a quantum system. It is the basic entity of study in quantum information theory, and can be manipulated using quantum information processing techniques. Quantum information refers to both t ...

, Concepts and Quantum Coherence *

Solar Physics Solar physics is the branch of astrophysics that specializes in the study of the Sun. It intersects with many disciplines of pure physics and astrophysics. Because the Sun is uniquely situated for close-range observing (other stars cannot be re ...

, Terrestrial Physics and Space Physics *

Theoretical Physics Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain, and predict List of natural phenomena, natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental p ...

* Women in Physics

Presidents

*1962–65 Leonard Huxley *1966–67 F. Lehany *1968 Alan Walsh *1969–70 A. Harper *1971–72 Robert Street *1973–74 F. J. Jacka *1975–76 J. Campbell *1977–78 Terry Sabine *1979–80 Herbert Bolton *1981–82 Neville Fletcher *1983–84 G. V. H. Wilson *1985–86 T. Fred Smith *1987–88 John Collins *1989–90 Anthony Klein *1991–92 Anthony Thomas *1993–94 Robert Crompton *1995–96 Ron McDonald *1997–98 Jaan Oitmaa *1999–2000 John Pilbrow *2001–02 John O'Connor *2003–04 Rob Elliman *2005–06 David Jamieson *2007–08 Cathy Foley *2009–10 Brian James *2011–12 Marc Duldig *2013–14 Robert Robinson *2015–16 Warrick Couch *2017–18 Andrew Peele *2019–20 Jodie Bradby *2021–22 Sven Rogge *2022–23 Nicole Bell

Awards

Bragg Gold Medal

The Bragg Gold Medal for Excellence in Physics has been awarded since 1992 for the best PhD thesis by a student from an Australian University and to commemorate Sir

Lawrence Bragg Sir William Lawrence Bragg (31 March 1890 – 1 July 1971) was an Australian-born British physicist who shared the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics with his father William Henry Bragg "for their services in the analysis of crystal structure by m ...

(in front on the medal) and his father Sir

William Henry Bragg Sir William Henry Bragg (2 July 1862 – 12 March 1942) was an English physicist and X-ray crystallographer who uniquelyThis is still a unique accomplishment, because no other parent-child combination has yet shared a Nobel Prize (in any fiel ...

who both played a significant part in physics education in Australia. Winners so far are: * 1992 Stephen Bass,

University of Adelaide The University of Adelaide is a public university, public research university based in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third-oldest university in Australia. Its main campus in the Adelaide city centre includes many Sa ...

* 1993 Henry Chapman,

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne (colloquially known as Melbourne University) is a public university, public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in the state ...

* 1994 Wolodymyr Melnitchouk,

* 1995 Howard Wiseman,

University of Queensland The University of Queensland is a Public university, public research university located primarily in Brisbane, the capital city of the Australian state of Queensland. Founded in 1909 by the Queensland parliament, UQ is one of the six sandstone ...

* 1996 Andre Luiten,

University of Western Australia University of Western Australia (UWA) is a public research university in the Australian state of Western Australia. The university's main campus is in Crawley, Western Australia, Crawley, a suburb in the City of Perth local government area. UW ...

* 1997 Alexander Buryak,

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public university, public research university and member of the Group of Eight (Australian universities), Group of Eight, located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton, A ...

* 1998

Tanya Monro Tanya Mary Monro (born 1973)
, science.org.au

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD) is a public university, public research university in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in both Australia and Oceania. One of Australia's six sandstone universities, it was one of the ...

* 1999 Ping Koy Lam,

* 2000 Mark Oxley,

* 2001 Nicole Bell,

* 2002 Annette Berriman,

* 2003 Michael Bromley,

Charles Darwin University Charles Darwin University (CDU) is an Australian public university with two campuses in Darwin and six satellite campuses in metropolitan and regional areas of the Northern Territory. It was established in 2003 after the merger of Northern Ter ...

* 2004 Warwick Bowen,

* 2005 Philip Bartlett,

Murdoch University Murdoch University is a public university in Perth, Western Australia, with campuses also in Singapore and Dubai. It began operations as the state's second university on 25 July 1973, and accepted its first undergraduate students in 1975. Its ...

* 2006 Alex Argyros,

* 2008 Frank Ruess,

University of New South Wales The University of New South Wales (UNSW) is a public research university based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It was established in 1949. The university comprises seven faculties, through which it offers bachelor's, master's and docto ...

* 2009 Christian Romer Rosberg,

* 2010 Clancy William James,

* 2011 Adrian D'Alfonso,

* 2012 Eva Kuhnle,

Swinburne University of Technology The Swinburne University of Technology (or simply Swinburne) is a public university, public research university in Melbourne, Australia. It is the modern descendant of the Eastern Suburbs Technical College established in 1908, renamed Swinburne ...

* 2013 Martin Fuechsle,

* 2014 Andrew Sutton,

* 2015 Jarryd Pla,

* 2016 Phiala Shanahan,

* 2017 Daniel Leykam,

* 2018 Yevgeny Stadnik,

* 2019 Samuel Gorman,

* 2020 Alexander Bray,

* 2021 Timothy Gray,

* 2022 Sebastian Wolf,

* 2023 Kirill Koshelev,

* 2024 Matthew Berrington,

Dirac Medal

The Dirac Medal for the Advancement of Theoretical Physics is awarded by the

in Sydney, jointly with the Australian Institute of Physics on the occasion of the public Dirac Lecture. The Lecture and the Medal commemorate the visit to the university in 1975 of Professor Dirac, who gave five lectures there. These lectures were subsequently published as a book: ''Directions of Physics'' (Wiley, 1978 – H. Hora and J. Shepanski, eds.). Professor Dirac donated the royalties from this book to the University for the establishment of the Dirac Lecture series. The prize, first awarded in 1979, includes a silver medal and honorarium. The recipients of the prize are: * 1979:

Hannes Alfvén Hannes Olof Gösta Alfvén (; 30 May 1908 – 2 April 1995) was a Swedish electrical engineer, plasma physicist and winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). He described the class of MHD waves now ...

* 1981: John Clive Ward * 1983:

Nicolaas Bloembergen Nicolaas Bloembergen (March 11, 1920 – September 5, 2017) was a Dutch- American physicist and Nobel laureate, recognized for his work in developing driving principles behind nonlinear optics for laser spectroscopy. During his career, he was a ...

* 1985:

David Pines David Pines (June 8, 1924 May 3, 2018) was a US physicist recognized for his work in quantum many-body systems in condensed matter and nuclear physics. With his advisor David Bohm, he contributed to the understanding of electron interactions in ...

* 1987:

Robert Hofstadter Robert Hofstadter (February 5, 1915 – November 17, 1990) was an American physicist. He was the joint winner of the 1961 Nobel Prize in Physics (together with Rudolf Mössbauer) "for his pioneering studies of electron scattering in atomic nucl ...

* 1988: Klaus von Klitzing * 1989: Carlo Rubbia & Kenneth G. Wilson * 1990: Norman F. Ramsey * 1991: Herbert A. Hauptman * 1992:

Wolfgang Paul Wolfgang Paul (; 10 August 1913 – 7 December 1993) was a German physicist, who co-developed the non-magnetic quadrupole mass filter which laid the foundation for what is now called an ion trap. He shared one-half of the Nobel Prize in Ph ...

* 1996: Edwin Salpeter * 2002:

Heinrich Hora Heinrich Hora (born 1 July 1931) is a German-Australian theoretical physics, theoretical physicist. He made contributions to solid state physics, optical properties of plasma with relativistic and quantum effects and nonlinear dynamics with app ...

* 2003: * 2004: Iosif Khriplovich * 2006: Sir Roger Penrose * 2008: Harald Fritzsch * 2011: Lord May of Oxford * 2012:

Brian Schmidt Brian Paul Schmidt (born 24 February 1967) is an American Australian astrophysics, astrophysicist at the Australian National University's Mount Stromlo Observatory and Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics. He was the Vice-Chancellor o ...

* 2013: Sir Michael Pepper * 2014: Serge Haroche * 2015: Subir Sachdev * 2016: Kenneth Freeman * 2017: Boris Altshuler * 2019:

Lene Hau Lene Vestergaard Hau (; born November 13, 1959) is a Danish physicist and educator. She is the Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and of Applied Physics at Harvard University. In 1999, she led a Harvard University team who, by use of a Bose–E ...

* 2020: Susan Scott

Honorary Fellows

* David Booth * Gordon Chapman * Robert Crompton * John Robert de Laeter * Robert Delbourgo * Geoff Forrest * Michael Gorroick * Tony Klein * GC Lowenthal AM * Bruce McKellar * Arthur Page *

* John Symonds * Gertrud Thompson

Fellows

* Derek Abbott * Ronald Ernest Aitchison * Hans A. Bachor * Clive Baldock *

Murray Batchelor Murray Thomas Batchelor (born 27 August 1961) is an Australian mathematical physicist. He is best known for his work in mathematical physics and theoretical physics. Academic career Batchelor was educated at Chatham Public School and Chatham H ...

* Nicole Bell * David Blair * Sean Cadogan * Susan Coppersmith * Warrick Couch * Mahananda Dasgupta * Robert Delbourgo * John Robert de Laeter * Peter Drummond * F. J. Duarte * Ben Eggleton * Min Gu * Peter Hannaford * Arthur Robert Hogg *

* Leonard Huxley * Rodney Jory * Yuri Kivshar * Bruce Harold John McKellar *

Tanya Monro Tanya Mary Monro (born 1973)
, science.org.au

* Brian J. Orr * James A. Piper * Arthur W. Pryor * Anthony William Thomas * John Clive Ward * Alan Walsh * John White

References

External links

* {{authority control Physics societies 1963 establishments in Australia Scientific organizations established in 1963 Scientific organisations based in Australia Institutes