 It was academic suicide ; Australia was far from the centres where the latest research was being carried out , and communications were much poorer at that time . But Oliphant accepted , and in 1950 returned to Australia as the first Director of the Research School of Physical Sciences and Engineering at the Australian National University . Within the school he created a Department of Particle Physics , which he headed himself , a Department of Nuclear Physics under Ernest Titterton , a Department of Geophysics under John Jaeger , a Department of Astronomy under Bart Bok , a Department of Theoretical Physics under Kevin <unk> and a Department of Mathematics under Bernhard Neumann . 
