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Scientific American’s Science and Technology
Web Awards recognise creative and innovative websites. Each year,
the journal’s editors select their favourite 25 websites from
the galaxy of IT, technology and science sites on the web. Well-resourced
US institutions such as Harvard, MIT, Cornell, NASA and the US Academy
of Natural Sciences back most of the winning sites.
In 2005 the only institution to win two of the awards was also
the only Australian winner: the UNSW School of Physics. One award
was for Music Acoustics, the other for “Einstein Light”,
an introduction to the theory of relativity.
The two websites have won a number of awards over the years, and
have been recommended by journals such as Science, Physics Today
and American Scientist.
The UNSW sites use a range of multimedia – images, animations,
film clips and sound files – to create an enjoyable, entertaining
learning experience. They are constructed to span a range of levels
from upper high school to specialist.
The teams (George Hatsidimitris, John Smith, John Tann and Joe
Wolfe) explain their philosophy thus:
“If you do it once and you do it well, a teaching or research
website is there whenever you need it and more importantly, it’s
there whenever someone else needs it. Academics from MIT, Cambridge
etc. contact us for permission to use them.
The research sites are also like a report to the shareholders:
universities are paid by taxpayers to do research and to communicate
it. The music acoustics website, for example, shows what we did
with the resources.”
Scientific American’s citations say:
Music Acoustics
“Listen up! Aimed at scientists and musicians alike, this
site offers a panoply of resources on the sound of music. From answers
to rudimentary questions like “What is a decibel?” to
the physics of the didgeridoo; from audio files of concert musicians
playing clarinet concertos to detailed explanations of cochlear
implants, ‘Music Acoustics’ is a compelling and harmonious
compendium of research at the crossroads of physics and music.”
Einstein Light
“Einstein spent decades trying to understand relativity. Thanks
to the efficient folks at the University of New South Wales, you
can do it in just five minutes. The site is divided into five sections:
Galileo, Maxwell, Einstein, Time Dilation and E=mc2, each featuring
a one–minute (or less!) multimedia movie on a major player
or principle of the space–time game. Hosted by fast–talking
physicist Joe Wolfe, the movies offer quick overviews and quirky
animation, plus links to more in–depth articles on the topic
at hand.”
George Hatsidimitris, John Smith,
John Tann and Joe Wolfe
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