Lord Robert May interviewed by Professor Robyn Williams
TitreLord Robert May interviewed by Professor Robyn Williams
Référence240000079
Date2008
CréateurAustralian Academy of Science
Etendue et contenuVideo interview and transcript of interview.
Robert McCredie May was born on 8 January 1938, in Sydney, Australia. He spent a solitary childhood playing puzzles and problem solving games. May attended Woollahra Primary School and Sydney Boys High School (1948–1952). There he became a champion in the school debating team and was greatly influenced by several excellent teachers, especially in science.
After topping his class and dismissing potential careers in law and medicine, May decided to pursue a degree in Chemical Engineering at the University of Sydney (1953). He divided his time between playing chess and snooker, and occasionally studying for chemistry, mathematics and physics exams, which he considered to be ‘interesting games’. Despite this approach he achieved incredible success, winning prizes in chemistry and physics. Contrary to advice received, he defied even more odds by successfully navigating a gruelling undergraduate combination of chemical engineering and physics in his second year. In his third year he forsook chemical engineering, simultaneously majoring in pure mathematics, applied mathematics, and physics (again despite contrary advice) and topping all three. After successfully completing his honours year in physics (1956), May decided on a career in science, and never looked back.
May’s PhD in physics at the University of Sydney focused on superconductivity. His supervisor, Robbie Schafroth, had shown that an ideal gas of charged bosons would be a superconductor, thus redefining the problem. May’s thesis aimed to show how one might get effectively bound pairs of electrons (which would be bosons). Bardeen, Cooper and Schrieffer outpaced the Sydney group in this quest, winning them the Nobel Prize.
After completing his thesis in 1959, May left Australia for a postdoctoral position in the Division of Engineering and Applied Physics at Harvard University, as Gordon MacKay Lecturer in Applied Mathematics (1959–61). During this time he met his wife, Judith, an event which he regards as the most important in his life.
May returned to Sydney University in Australia as a Senior Lecturer in the Physics Department at the end of 1961. In 1964 he was appointed Reader and in 1969 received one of the two first 'Personal Professorships' established at Sydney University. Around this time, partly as a result of involvement in the newly-formed movement for social responsibility in science, he developed an interest in animal population dynamics and the relationship between complexity and stability in natural communities. He further developed these interests during an 18-month sabbatical, first in the UK (at the Culham Plasma Physics Laboratories and the Imperial College Field Station at Silwood Park) and then at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.
In 1973 May moved to take up a Professorship in the Biology Department at Princeton University. Here he used his skills as a theoretical physicist to make major advances in the field of population biology. Over the next three decades these tools were further extended to the study of infectious diseases and of biodiversity.
In 1988 May moved to Britain, taking up a post as Royal Society Research Professor at Oxford University. He served as the Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government and head of its Office of Science and Technology between 1995 and 2000, and was President of the Royal Society between 2000 and 2005.
Lord May has received numerous accolades, including Knight Bachelor in 1996, Companion of the Order of Australia in 1998, and the Order of Merit in 2002. His Fellowships include the Royal Society in 1979, Corresponding Member of the Australian Academy of Science in 1991, Foreign Member of the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1992, Academia Europaea in 1994, and Fellow of the Royal Society of New South Wales in 2010. He has received honorary degrees from Uppsala (1990), Yale (1993), Sydney (1995), Princeton (1996), the ETH Zürich (2003), Harvard (2013), Oxford (2004), and several other UK universities. His honours include the Weldon Memorial Prize by the University of Oxford (1980), the American Ecological Society MacArthur Award (1984), the Medal of the Linnean Society of London (1991), the Frink Medal of the Zoological Society of London (1995), the Royal Swedish Academy’s Crafoord Prize (1996), the Swiss-Italian Balzan Prize (1998), the Japanese Blue Planet Prize (2001) and the Royal Society’s Copley Medal (2007), its oldest and most prestigious award.
Robert McCredie May was born on 8 January 1938, in Sydney, Australia. He spent a solitary childhood playing puzzles and problem solving games. May attended Woollahra Primary School and Sydney Boys High School (1948–1952). There he became a champion in the school debating team and was greatly influenced by several excellent teachers, especially in science.
After topping his class and dismissing potential careers in law and medicine, May decided to pursue a degree in Chemical Engineering at the University of Sydney (1953). He divided his time between playing chess and snooker, and occasionally studying for chemistry, mathematics and physics exams, which he considered to be ‘interesting games’. Despite this approach he achieved incredible success, winning prizes in chemistry and physics. Contrary to advice received, he defied even more odds by successfully navigating a gruelling undergraduate combination of chemical engineering and physics in his second year. In his third year he forsook chemical engineering, simultaneously majoring in pure mathematics, applied mathematics, and physics (again despite contrary advice) and topping all three. After successfully completing his honours year in physics (1956), May decided on a career in science, and never looked back.
May’s PhD in physics at the University of Sydney focused on superconductivity. His supervisor, Robbie Schafroth, had shown that an ideal gas of charged bosons would be a superconductor, thus redefining the problem. May’s thesis aimed to show how one might get effectively bound pairs of electrons (which would be bosons). Bardeen, Cooper and Schrieffer outpaced the Sydney group in this quest, winning them the Nobel Prize.
After completing his thesis in 1959, May left Australia for a postdoctoral position in the Division of Engineering and Applied Physics at Harvard University, as Gordon MacKay Lecturer in Applied Mathematics (1959–61). During this time he met his wife, Judith, an event which he regards as the most important in his life.
May returned to Sydney University in Australia as a Senior Lecturer in the Physics Department at the end of 1961. In 1964 he was appointed Reader and in 1969 received one of the two first 'Personal Professorships' established at Sydney University. Around this time, partly as a result of involvement in the newly-formed movement for social responsibility in science, he developed an interest in animal population dynamics and the relationship between complexity and stability in natural communities. He further developed these interests during an 18-month sabbatical, first in the UK (at the Culham Plasma Physics Laboratories and the Imperial College Field Station at Silwood Park) and then at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.
In 1973 May moved to take up a Professorship in the Biology Department at Princeton University. Here he used his skills as a theoretical physicist to make major advances in the field of population biology. Over the next three decades these tools were further extended to the study of infectious diseases and of biodiversity.
In 1988 May moved to Britain, taking up a post as Royal Society Research Professor at Oxford University. He served as the Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government and head of its Office of Science and Technology between 1995 and 2000, and was President of the Royal Society between 2000 and 2005.
Lord May has received numerous accolades, including Knight Bachelor in 1996, Companion of the Order of Australia in 1998, and the Order of Merit in 2002. His Fellowships include the Royal Society in 1979, Corresponding Member of the Australian Academy of Science in 1991, Foreign Member of the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1992, Academia Europaea in 1994, and Fellow of the Royal Society of New South Wales in 2010. He has received honorary degrees from Uppsala (1990), Yale (1993), Sydney (1995), Princeton (1996), the ETH Zürich (2003), Harvard (2013), Oxford (2004), and several other UK universities. His honours include the Weldon Memorial Prize by the University of Oxford (1980), the American Ecological Society MacArthur Award (1984), the Medal of the Linnean Society of London (1991), the Frink Medal of the Zoological Society of London (1995), the Royal Swedish Academy’s Crafoord Prize (1996), the Swiss-Italian Balzan Prize (1998), the Japanese Blue Planet Prize (2001) and the Royal Society’s Copley Medal (2007), its oldest and most prestigious award.
LangueEnglish
Document électronique
Mot clé de personne Robert May, Robyn Williams
Conditions d'accèsThe Australian Academy of Science supports and encourages the use of its archive & library by making a material available to the public under Creative Commons CC BY-NC 4.0 see creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
NiveauItem
