Recognition of Prof John Webb, UNSW
Published on the 02 Dec 2012
Leading Australian newspaper the Sydney Morning Herald has recognised the relevance and importance of science in our society in their "Top 100" list.
The universe still carefully hides a huge number of secrets but with a bit of persuasion divulges some every now and then. Webb's work on exploring whether the constants of Nature are truly constant or whether they differ in remote parts of the universe confronts the "Einstein Equivalence Principle", one of the fundamental assumptions underpinning our current theory of gravity. Controversially, his measurements suggest that assumption may only be a good approximation, and not a fundamental principle. If confirmed, some of our basic ideas about time and space may need to be re-thought.