Questacon founder Professor Mike Gore dies

The current Questacon director, Professor Graham Durant, said Professor Gore died on Saturday morning surrounded by family.

Professor Durant remembered Professor Gore's passion, drive and resilience in bringing science to the public, and his legacy was a significant institution that attracted scores of visitors to the ACT.

"It is a time of sadness, but also of gratitude because Mike's contribution was terrific. His work here in Canberra, across Australia and internationally has made a difference to many, many lives," Professor Durant said.

"His core philosophy remains the philosophy of Questacon to this day, and will do into the future, which is all about creating experiential learning: hands-on activities, learning by doing, if you like."

Professor Durant said Professor Gore was part of a global community of people working hard to set up science centres globally.

"It's terrific having Mike and as friend and mentor. He was active right up to the end, particularly his work overseas, and he was helping develop science centres and science centre people right up to the end with colleagues at the university. He still had plans for this current year to do more of that," he said.

Professor Joan Leach, the director of the Australian National Centre for Public Awareness of Science, which Professor Gore established at the Australian National University in 1995, said there was no replacement for Professor Gore.

"Mike knew that this was a different way of thinking about science engagement and that people would need to be trained to do this kind of work, to actually be science communicators, and to take that seriously," Professor Leach said.

Professor Leach said one of Professor Gore's biggest legacies was the more than 500 graduates of the science circus program, and other Australian institutions had moved towards being more engaging on his lead rather than simply educational..

"We also need places that are just a bit of fun. They're that first brush with science, where you can have childlike wonder around things and not have to feel like you're obligated [to learn]," she said.

"He saw that as a freeing thing. It's quite interesting to think about how that idea, which now might not seem so radical, has moved on a lot of Australian institutes into thinking a little bit more about engagement, instead of always being the voice of authority or the educational voice of science."

Professor Gore was born in Bolton, Lancashire, in 1934, the only child of electrical engineer Ernest Gore and May Robinson. He went on to study electrical engineering and physics at Leeds University.

He joined the Australian National University in 1962 after post-doctoral studies in the United States, where her met Joyce Klaber, whom he married in Canberra.

The idea for Questacon came from Professor Gore's 1976 visit to the "Mecca" of interactive science centres, the Exploratorium in San Francisco.

"Like many other people around the world I stopped and said 'wow' and came back to Australia and said, 'We've got to have one of those'," Professor Gore told The Canberra Times in 2015.

"After doing lots of walking and talking and persuading people I decided I would try and build one."

From its humble beginnings at Ainslie Public School in 1980, Questacon moved to its current home in 1988. The building was Japan's gift to Australia to mark the country's bicentenary.

Professor Gore began his scientific career with a PhD in electrical engineering at Leeds University, which he completed in 1960.

While teaching physics at ANU for 25 years, he realised his passion for teaching and explaining things to everybody.

Professor Gore said critics who believed people walked away from science centres like Questacon without learning anything misunderstood their purpose.

"Science centres are not there to teach, schools and universities are there to teach. Science centres are there to inspire and make people think, change people's perceptions," he said.

"To make people think, 'Oh here is an exciting and interesting subject, I never realised that was connected to that'."

Gore said he was most proud of creating Questacon's outreach programs, including the science circus which takes Questacon exhibits into country towns.

"It is the biggest travelling science exhibition in the world," he said.

"No other country has got a science circus like Questacon ... and I'm terribly proud of that because it reaches out to Australians even in the most remote parts of the country."

Professor Gore resigned from Questacon in 1999 and returned full-time to the ANU, where he was adjunct professor of the university's Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, which he founded in 1995.

He was made Canberran of the Year in 1983 and a Member of the Order of Australia in 1986 for services to science education.

Professor Gore was in 2015 made an Officer of the Order of Australia for distinguished service to science through a range of public outreach, communication and education initiatives on a national and international level, and as a mentor and role model for young scientists.

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