Scientists honored by the Prime Minister reward scientists for speeding up the Internet and ensuring GPS accuracy – Science News

A geophysicist whose work helped to plan space missions and paint a better picture of sea level rise received the Prime Minister's Award for Science 2018.

Professor Kurt Lambeck has been awarded the $ 250,000 prize at the House of Parliament for a great deal of research spanning a long and impressive career.

In the 1960s, his early work describing the gravity field of the Earth helped to better plan space missions.

"It was when all this satellite activity started," said Professor Lambeck of the Australian National University.

"It was pretty obvious how these satellites could be used for mapping … and then, of course, all these interesting geophysical results came out, and I think I became a real scientist at that time, rather that an engineer.

"I really went from space technologist to geophysicist."

Looking more closely, it became apparent that the changes in the Earth's gravity field were related to plate tectonics – the movements of continents on the surface of the Earth.

The next phase of his research has explained how our planet changes shape over time – which has implications for sea level, continental movement and even satellite orbits.

"There is a whole range of variations from the second to the age of the Earth."

Professor Lambeck strove to understand what this spectrum of variation looked like.

Studying the ice ages of the Earth has been successful – while contributing to our understanding of sea-level rise due to global warming.

"Ice history is one of the elements of this spectrum," he said.

"Ice caps of Antarctic size [once] For example, in North America and Asia, the Earth can not support the type of associated load. It falls below and the crust sinks. "

When the ice caps melted, the earth's crust began to rise – very, very slowly, in processes that are still going on today.

Over time, the position of the earth has changed relative to the sea. This may be partly due to the uplift of the earth's crust, while others may be due to changes in ocean volumes. .

"It's the key contribution we make to that."

This research helped to guide discussions on sea-level rise caused by global warming.

"If the remaining ice sheets melt in Greenland and Antarctica, the sea level will rise, so we provide the necessary framework to discuss it," he said.

"Satellites have been built to measure these current deformations, particularly to see what is happening in Greenland and Antarctica – but these signals are contaminated by what has happened in the past. [for example glacial rebound from the ice ages].

"We can provide the necessary mechanisms to eliminate this problem and see what is happening today and how much of what is happening today is due to melting ice sheets or warming oceans."

Ensure the accuracy of GPS-based applications

Professor Lambeck's research has also helped inform the GPS systems we rely on for smartphone navigation applications, high-tech mining activities – and precision farming.

"Agriculture is increasingly being done in semi-automation," he explained.

"The tractors are equipped with GPS receivers so that they can repeat exactly the same plowing tracks every year, but the surface of the Earth is moving under the satellites.

"Every year in Australia, your track will be replaced by something like 7 or 8 centimeters, which is damaging to the ground."

The movement of the Earth has similar implications for the accuracy of GPS systems that could one day control driverless cars.

And when you use GPS systems to inform a vehicle traveling more than 100 kilometers at the time, access to accurate data can be a matter of life and death.

"This has really created the need for a very very accurate SEO system, whereby we know where every point of the Australian continent, or even the world, is, with less than a centimeter precision," he said. .

"And that's what has been developed in Australia over the last decade."

Professor Lambeck has helped to create a network of about 100 GPS stations, radio telescopes and laser tracking systems, which can track the location with this type of accuracy anywhere in Australia.

"My role in this area was not primarily to do hard computer work, but to move this agenda forward," he said.

Professor Lambeck, who has already tried to retire once, said the award would help him continue his research "for a few more years".

He said the government's support for science was "absolutely essential" in order to develop the national capacity to provide factual evidence in support of their policies.

"When you look [at the other awardees] … You have among us some very bright people who have done wonders in the fields of applied sciences and basic sciences. "

Increase the speed and capacity of the Internet

The second grand prize of the evening was awarded to four Australian scientists and engineers, whose company helped revolutionize the speed and capacity of the Internet.

Andrew Bartos, Dr. Simon Poole, Dr. Glenn Baxter and Dr. Steven Frisken of Finisar received the Prime Minister's Award for Innovation of $ 250,000, for the creation of a device to transport about half of the global Internet traffic.

Mr Bartos said that many people do not realize that the internet and mobile phones work primarily with fiber optics.

"It's been like this for many years, but it was clear to us, back in the year 2000, that fiber, and light in fiber, was not used efficiently enough," did he declare.

Mr Bartos and his colleagues understood that if light could be used more efficiently in the fiber and switched more efficiently, it was possible to significantly improve speed and capacity.

The result was a lightweight switch (using prisms, liquid crystal and silicon) capable of simultaneously processing millions of high definition videos.

"We had the challenge of convincing people that our approach was worth it," Bartos said.

"But over the past four or five years, this technology has become the dominant technology in the industry and is now undisputed."

Technology has also helped to help people in less developed countries access high-speed Internet, which would have been previously affordable.

"That's one of the good things … in a way, it democratizes or extends the availability of the Internet," said Bartos.

"We are really excited to have benefited both developed and less developed countries – because there are not many technologies that everyone has access to."