The top science award for 2020 goes to Australian physicists who helped detect distortions in space-time

This year’s prestigious Prime Minister’s Science Award was awarded to a team of Australian physicists for their contribution to a stellar discovery that bends reality.

Professor Emeritus David Blair and Professors Susan Scott, David McClellan and Peter Veitch of the Australian Research Council Center of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav) were honored for their role in the first direct detection of gravitational waves in 2015.

The discovery was the result of an astronomical effort by over 1,000 scientists. It happened about a century after Albert Einstein first predicted the existence of gravitational waves, in 1916, a year after he published his theory of general relativity.

Read more: Einstein’s madness: how the search for a unified theory led to his death

Gravitational waves are distortions in the fabric of space-time that spread outward from a source at the speed of light. They can be compared to the ripples that emanate when a stone is dropped into the water.

In 1997, Blair, McClelland, Scott and Veitch (members of the then new Australian Consortium for Interferometric Gravitational-Wave Astronomy) joined the United States-based LIGO Scientific Collaboration. This project has focused directly on the direct detection of gravitational waves and the myriad of applications of that discovery.

Professor Scott said there were huge technological challenges to overcome:

Everything had to be about a thousand times better, including the shapes of the mirrors, the frequency of the lasers, the acoustic squeezing of the mirrors, and the vibration isolation. […] This is a story that has spanned 100 years, ever since Einstein introduced his theory of general relativity in 1915.

The goal of the LIGO collaboration was finally achieved in 2015, with the detection of a signal caused by two black holes that had collided about 1.3 billion years ago. In 2017, gravitational waves were detected again, this time as a result of the collision of two neutron stars.

This observation confirmed neutron stars as the source of previously observed but unexplained high-energy gamma-ray bursts. Collisions between neutron stars are the second most powerful event known in the universe, following mergers of black holes.

Read more: Nobel Prize in Physics for Two Discoveries: Evidence for the Big Bang and a Way to Find Exoplanets

The insights gleaned from gravitational wave detection continue to pave the way for all researchers who wish to delve further into the cosmos with their work. He is currently helping efforts to understand what happened in the immediate aftermath of the Big Bang.

Helping people and the planet

Bringing the spotlight back to Earth, University of Sydney chemistry professor Thomas Maschmeyer was awarded the Innovation Award for his work on two technologies that have helped advance Australia’s ability to solve sustainability.

Both have broad implications for how we recycle commercial waste and how we can increase the effectiveness of renewable energy storage in more challenging environments.

On the health side, Professor Mark Dawson of the Peter MacCallum Cancer Center was awarded the Life Scientist of the Year Award. Dawson has contributed greatly to the field of epigenetics – which looks at how environmental factors can affect our genes – and its regulation in human health and disease.

His findings on human genes have helped revolutionize blood cancer treatments.

Other award recipients included:

• Associate Professor of the University of New South Wales Xiaojing Hao. Hao received the Malcolm McIntosh Prize for Physical Scientist of the Year. His research on “kesterite sulfide” solar cells is reshaping the way we think about producing renewable solar energy.

• Justin Chalker, associate professor at Flinders University Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology. Chalker received the New Innovators Award for his invention of a class of polymers capable of providing sustainable solutions to various challenges facing humanity. His work is about to revolutionize the way we access clean air, fresh water and sustainable food production.

• Sarah Fletcher, elementary school teacher at Bonython Primary School. Fletcher received the Award for Excellence in Primary School Science Teaching, for his contribution to the STEM program at Bonython Primary School and the wider ACT community.

• Darren Hamley, Willetton high school teacher. Hamley was awarded the Award for Excellence in Science Teaching in Secondary Schools, for his continuing mission to instill a love of science in his students and his overall commitment to science education in Western Australia.