image: While looking for exploding black holes Dr. John O'Sullivan created a technology that made Wi-Fi fast and reliable. view more
Credit: Australian Government/Bearcage
The 2009 Australian Prime Minister's Prize for Science has been awarded to astronomer/engineer Dr John O'Sullivan.
The award and $300,000 grant recognises Dr O'Sullivan's contributions to astronomy and to the invention which made wireless computing fast and reliable.
While looking for exploding black holes Dr O'Sullivan created a technology that cleaned up intergalactic radio waves.
Then in 1992, he and his colleagues at CSIRO realised that the same technology was the key to fast reliable wireless networking in the office and home.
Their patented invention is now built into international standards and into computers, printers, smart phones and other devices used by hundreds of millions of people every day.
It's one of the most significant achievements in CSIRO's 83 year history and illustrates how blue sky research can have very practical outcomes.
Professor O'Sullivan is now working on the design of the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder telescope - a step towards the giant Square Kilometre Array which will be able to look back 13 billion years, almost to the Big Bang.
The citation for Dr O'Sullivan is available online at www.scienceinpublic.com.au along with photos and further background information.
For further information contact Niall Byrne, Science in Public, +61 3 9398-1416 or niall@scienceinpublic.com.au
An extract from the citation follows.
HOW ASTRONOMY FREED THE COMPUTER FROM ITS CHAINS
Nearly a billion people use John O'Sullivan's invention every day. When you use a Wi-Fi network—at home, in the office or at the airport—you are using patented technology born of the work of John and his CSIRO colleagues.
They created a technology that made the wireless LAN fast and robust. And their solution came from John's efforts to hear the faint radio whispers of exploding black holes.
Today John is working on technology that will allow us to look back almost to the beginning of time itself.
For his achievements in astronomy and wireless technologies John O'Sullivan receives the 2009 Prime Minister's Prize for Science.
In 1977 John O'Sullivan co-wrote a paper about the use of a set of mathematical equations known as Fourier transforms to sharpen optical telescope images distorted by the atmosphere. The paper is short and, like O'Sullivan, somewhat humble. It builds on first principles of physics, but brings together a broad view joining radio and optics. And the paper is seminal. It explains the techniques known as adaptive optics and proves why they work.
What's truly remarkable is that the consequences of that paper are now at work in millions of homes, airports, cafés, offices, hotels and universities across the world. They have cut the cables that tied computers to the desk and turned laptops into ubiquitous social and business tools…
Amongst John's many research interests was the search for radio waves from exploding black holes—predicted in 1974 by Stephen Hawking. John didn't find them, but the techniques he and his collaborators developed to clean up intergalactic radio wave distortion eventually found expression as the technology in the wireless LAN.
Further details at http://www.scienceinpublic.com/blog/