Mathematical physicistContents
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Professor Angas Hurst was interviewed in 2010 for the Interviews with Australian scientists series. By viewing the interviews in this series, or reading the transcripts and extracts, your students can begin to appreciate Australia's contribution to the growth of scientific knowledge and view science as a human endeavour. These interviews specifically tie into the Australian Curriculum sub-strand ‘Nature and development of science’.
The following summary of Professor Hurst’s career sets the context for the extract chosen for these teachers’ notes. The extract exemplifies the collaborative nature of research and the initial resistance with which new ideas are often received. Use the focus questions that accompany the extract to promote discussion among your students.
Charles Angas Hurst was born in Adelaide in 1923. Hurst attended the Scotch College, Melbourne where he graduated dux in 1940. Hurst then enrolled at the University of Melbourne but his studies were interrupted by war. In 1942, he enlisted with the Royal Australian Air Force in radio location. After completing a radio physics course at the University of Sydney, a radar course at Richmond and officer training at Bradfield Park, Pilot Officer Hurst was stationed firstly on Normanby Island and then Manus Island, Papua New Guinea (1942-46).
After the war, Hurst returned to complete his studies at the University of Melbourne, graduating with a BA Hons (1947) and a BSc (1948). He was then awarded the Aitchison Travelling Scholarship from the University of Melbourne which allowed him to travel to Cambridge for his PhD studies. Hurst was awarded his PhD in 1952 for his work on an aspect of renormalisation theory. Hurst returned to Australia and the University of Melbourne to take up a position as senior lecturer in the Mathematics Department. In 1957, Hurst moved to the Mathematical Physics department at the University of Adelaide. He was appointed here firstly as senior lecturer (1957-60), then reader (1961-64) and finally professor (1964-88). During this time Hurst worked on a number of mathematical physics problems including the Ising model. Hurst was made professor emeritus in the department of Physics and Mathematical Physics in 1989.
Professor Hurst served the University of Adelaide community in a number of roles, including chairman and vice-chairman of the Education Committee (1973-76), member of Council (1975-78) and pro vice-chancellor (1986-88). He also served the international scientific community as a member of the executive of the International Association of Mathematical Physics and member of the IUPAP Commission for Mathematical Physics (1981-87).
Professor Hurst was honoured for his work in mathematical physics, receiving a Doctor of Science (honoris causa) degree from the University of Melbourne (1991), the Centenary medal (2001) and membership to the Order of Australia (2003).
Professor Hurst was elected to the fellowship of the Australian Academy of Science in 1972 and served as chairman of the National Committee for Physics (1979-88), as a member of Council (1983-86) and as vice-president (1984-85). Professor Hurst passed away in October 2011.
Putting physics on a solid foundation
What is the work of which you are most proud?
It all started back in 1958 or 1959. I was reviewing articles for mathematical reviews and I had reviewed a paper by a chap by the name of Candlin. He was tackling one of the continuing problems in quantum electrodynamics – ‘supplementary condition’, which seemed to be misbehaving for different reasons from the divergences. He had a way of handling it. But, I thought it could be expressed much better if one used algebraic methods. So I wrote a paper on this and then, when I went to Britain in 1961 on my first study leave, I took this account with me. I talked about it in Edinburgh, and they loved it. I talked about it in Glasgow, and they loved it. I talked about it in Cambridge and even kept Dirac awake. In fact, two students told me afterwards that my talk had inspired them to go on in mathematical physics. Then I went down to London, to Salam’s group, and they hated it and they were very nasty. They said that it was too mathematical. Later I went to Geneva and they hated it too. They said that it wasn’t mathematical enough! I thought, ‘Oh, blow you,’ and just left it.
I kept getting a bit niggled by it and about eight years later I thought, ‘We should be able to do something with this’. In the way of a most cruel lecturer, I gave it as a PhD topic to my student Janice Gaffney. She cottoned on to the key approach. She wrote it up and got her PhD for it. We then sent it off to be published and it was rejected. We were a bit stunned.
We had a postdoctoral student with us at the time by the name of Alan Carey, who is now a professor in Canberra. He came in and said, ‘I think we can do something with your problem,’ and it was very subtle. We had used algebraic methods. One of the algebraic methods that we had used was called ‘von Neumann algebras’ and Alan Carey suggested another algebraic method called C-star algebras, and that worked beautifully. So we published it with no trouble at all. We then dug away regularly and rebuilt the whole structure of the supplementary condition in quantum electrodynamics using this approach.
Then another student came along, Hendrik Grundling. Interestingly enough, Hendrik was a South African who came to Melbourne because his cousin had started to pay for his study as an MSc. So Hendrik came to me to do an MSc and I put him on to this problem. He turned out to be a very good mathematician who is now at the University of New South Wales. We took up ideas that Dirac had talked to us about back in 1950 and rebuilt them to make a proper mathematical theory: the Dirac Theory of Constraints. I lectured on that in a Schladming conference and got written up in the local newspaper. I am very proud of it because it provides a foundation for what are called ‘constrained physical theories’, which are theories in which there are constraints where things cannot vary freely. They are called ‘gauge theories’ in physics. The whole of physics is built with this, and we have the rigorous basis for it. It is not new particles and it is not new laws of physics, but it puts things on a solid foundation. I am very proud of that.
Yes, indeed.
An edited transcript of the full interview can be found at http://www.science.org.au/scientists/interviews/h/hurst.html.
Focus questions
Activities
Select activities that are most appropriate for your lesson plan or add your own. These activities align with the Australian Curriculum strands ‘Science Understanding’, ‘Science as a Human Endeavour’ and ‘Science Inquiry Skills’, as well as the New South Wales syllabus Stage 6 Physics outcome 8.2.1 and 9.8.1. You can also encourage students to identify key issues in the preceding extract and devise their own questions or topics for discussion.
collaboration
mathematics
models
physics
teamwork
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