OBITUARY

Robert May died on 28/04/2020.

Lord Robert McCredie May was a leading light in biology, zoology, epidemiology, physics and public policy who contributed to the discovery of chaos theory.

Born in Sydney on 8 January 1938, Robert May completed a PhD in Superconductivity at the University of Sydney and went on to become one of Australia’s most accomplished scientists.

He served as the Chief Scientific Adviser to the United Kingdom, was President of the Royal Society, and was made a Lord in 2001.

In 2001 he was also elected an Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering.

As well as the Crawford prize, the Blue Planet prize, Balzan prize and many more, Lord May was awarded the Copley Medal — the Royal Society’s most prestigious honour, previously won by luminaries including Stephen Hawking, Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin and Dorothy Hodgkin.

Professor Joss Bland-Hawthorn, the director of the Sydney Institute for Astronomy, said May’s “...career, in simple terms was getting to the bottom of what makes things complicated.

“He didn’t go for titles very much. He was Lord May, Baron of Oxford but he was very unpretentious. He told me one night at dinner that he was the first person in the history of the Royal Society to get a swear word in the minutes. He said not even Isaac Newton achieved that.”

Dr Benjamin Pope, an Australian astrophysicist who worked with May, said “he contributed not only to theoretical physics, but also to very applied knowledge, advising governments about serious issues of public policy."

“Robert May is a great example of how a scientist can contribute to all those different spheres in that way,” Pope said.

“He really showed he cared about people, he had a social conscience,” Pope said.

Robert May died on 28 April, aged 84.