Barry Ninham - Emeritus Professor, mathematician and chemist

Abstract

This audio interview, with Emeritus Professor Barry Ninham, is part of the Emeritus Faculty's Oral History Program, involving retired staff members of ANU who were part of the university in its earlier life. The Oral History Program was initiated and developed by ANU Emeritus Faculty as a contribution to university and community understanding of the beginnings and development of ANU over the past six decades. Emeritus Faculty has a special interest in this era, since the Faculty's membership includes many of the people who helped shape ANU in its early days, to make it the pre-eminent university it is today.

Barry Ninham is emeritus professor in the Research School of Physical Sciences and Engineering at ANU. Born in Adelaide in 1936, he is a graduate of the University of Western Australia and has a PhD from the University of Maryland in the USA. Following his postgraduate studies (in mathematical physics) Barry returned to Australia in 1962 to an appointment in the University of New South Wales. From there, in 1970, he was appointed to the foundation Chair in Applied Mathematics in RSPhysS in ANU.

Barry has been a Visiting Professor at many universities in Europe, the USA, and Japan, and has won awards from academies and institutes in these countries. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and was a foundation member of the UNESCO Commission on Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology. ANU has recently honoured him by naming the chair which he previously held the Barry Ninham Chair of Natural Philosophy.

Barry has published extensively in various areas of physics and physical chemistry, especially colloid and surface chemistry, and biophysics. He and his department pioneered modern theories, and measurement, of molecular forces, and how these forces conspire with the size and shape of molecules to generate self-assembled aggregates that are so important in biology. He is currently writing books on the paradigm shift occurring in physical chemistry; and on the connections between quantum mechanics, number theory, and perception.