Swinburne University's Matthew Bailes has been recognised for his role in discovering fast radio bursts, which are now used by scientists to learn about the Universe.
Swinburne University of Technology astrophysicist Matthew Bailes has won the 2024 Prime Minister's Prize for Science.
"The hot topic when I was a young scientist were these things called millisecond pulsars. These are neutron stars that rotate up to 700 times a second," he said. "I thought, next time I need to be more careful and try and earn back the respect of our peers … get our reputations back to at least acceptable levels."That costly mistake was in the back of Professor Bailes's mind throughout his work that led to the discovery of what we now know asIt started when he met up with his former PhD student Duncan Lorimer, and asked him if he'd found anything interesting lately.
After some initial calculations, along with Professor McLaughlin, the three researchers thought they might have found something brand new.But as years passed without anyone else finding another fast radio burst, Professor Bailes began to doubt his findings. Thousands of fast radio bursts have been discovered since. Researchers use them to measure the magnetic field strength between galaxies or understand the mass of the Universe.Today Professor Bailes is the director of the ARC Centre of Exellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery, or OzGrav, where he coordinates Australia's research into gravitational wave science.The team is now using a network of pulsars to try and find gravitational waves from supermassive black holes.
"I try and get kids who are interested in space and science to come and work with real researchers while they're still in high school," he said.
Matthew Bailes Fast Radio Bursts Quantum Brilliance Anaesthesia Momelotinib Lorimer Burst
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