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Comment by ngcc_hk | Hacker News Reader

The more striking part is that it is in Australia.

The country that explained to the US that it was possible to build a nuclear weapon? The place that made the clocks that allowed laser gravitional wave detectors to work?

Who'd have thought.

I am not aware of the nuclear weapon story, do you have a link? I'm also not sure it's such a great example of expertise that came out of Australia.

There is also WiFi (CSIRO), seL4 (NICTA), ResMed, Cochlear, Saluda (NICTA), and many many more.

A link to a good starting point in the atomic archives is there in my reply to a peer comment.

It might not be a story of Australian expertise in (then) cutting edge technology that you like, but it's a real nugget of history.

His mentor was a New Zealander ... now a determinedly nuclear free country.

How did laser enrichment turn into the former? What did Australia have to do with nukes in WWII?

These are very good questions:

[1] https://www.uwa.edu.au/Profile/David-Blair

[2] https://www.atomicheritage.org/profile/mark-oliphant

Not sure Blair had anything to do with Silex.

Actually Australia has quite a lot of research in quantum information science.

Andrea Morello's videos [0] are awesome.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHSIfioizVW1sXAjY3aYC...

Australia has many leading experts in theoretical and experimental quantum control

What is striking about it?

that it breaks the OP's the common misconception that australia is a backwater country that cannot do anything but export resources?

I'd say many people also assume such things about my country Canada. Both Canada and Australia have small populations, large land area, and are not in the news much. Out of sight out of mind and one day we're in the news.

For example Canada built the NIRISS (exoplanet detection and analysis) and the FRS (guidance) devices for the JWST.

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