What are your thoughts on the Pirelli relativity award?

[pervect]

I was wondering what folks here thought of the Pirelli relativity award (still open).

http://www.pirelliaward.com/einstein.html

It seems to me that it's a good idea, though I'm a bit skeptical at how much multimedia is going to aid the explanation of relativity.

 

[robphy]

The deadline for submissions (9/15/05) has passed. However, the judging hasn't come up with a winner yet.
I think a good multimedia presentation can help teach relativity.
I entered something for it.

 

[robphy]

http://www.pirelliaward.com/news0511.html
http://www.la7.it/pirelli/

has screenshots [with Italian descriptions] of the finalists. (You'll need a Macromedia Flash plugin.)

From the screenshots, it looks like cartoon-based presentations won.

 

[robphy]

Winners announced. See my blog entry https://www.physicsforums.com/blog/2005/12/03/pirelli-relativity-challenge-2005-winners-announced/

 

[pervect]

I'd be very interested in seeing the full version of the winner and/or runners up if they get released in English. As-is, seeing a few slides from a presentation in another language isn't doing that much for me. It does seems to me, though, that cartoon format has won, meaning that the visuals are what I'd call eye-candy.

 

[robphy]

I'd be very interested in seeing the full version of the winner and/or runners up if they get released in English. As-is, seeing a few slides from a presentation in another language isn't doing that much for me. It does seems to me, though, that cartoon format has won, meaning that the visuals are what I'd call eye-candy.

The webcast does show the full version of the winning entry in English, I believe... unfortunately, not in its native media format. The entry by Robert Ehrlich was nicely done... emphasizing some good relativistic pedagogy for beginners. See the blog entry for their links, other finalists and some attempts.

 

[Enuma_Elish]

Will they publish the submitted visuals as a calendar?

 

[robphy]

A new announcement has appeared on http://www.pirelliaward.com/news0512.html with the winners of the grand prize and of the five special prizes.

The winning entries (i.e, the "movies") are now posted at http://www.pirelliaward.com/prc_intro.html .


[p.s.]
From the blog comment, the winning entry
“Al’s Relativistic Adventures” by Kiran Sachdev, Jackie English, and Bogdan Luca
is also available at http://www.onestick.com/relativity/ .

 

[pervect]

I took a look at the main prize winner today. I was reasonably impressed, though unfortunately I see a large potential for some confusion on the issues of "seen" clock rates (doppler shifts) vs computed clock rates (time dilation) :-(.

I thought the quiz feature was a nice tough, introducing some interactivity, and helping to make sure that the reader understood what was being said.