The Spanish National Particle Physics, Astroparticles and Nuclear Physics Centre, CPAN (Centro Nacional de Física de Partículas, Astropartículas y Nuclear), has awarded the prizes to the winners of its first science communication competition, an initiative that was launched last year with a view to encouraging the production of popular science materials on these areas of physics. This first edition of the competition received 47 entries in the four categories (articles, websites, audiovisual materials and experiments), from authors in Spain, Argentina and Chile.
The winner of the popular science articles category was a text entitled «Antimateria, magia y poesía» (Antimatter, magic and poetry) by José Daniel Edelstein, a researcher at the University of Santiago de Chile) and Andrés Gomberoff, a Chilean physicist.
The winner in the websites/blogs category was the blog «La Hora Cero» , edited by Carlos Escobar, a researcher at the Instituto de Física Corpuscular (IFIC, a joint centre belonging to the CSIC-University of Valencia). The runners up in this category were the wesbite MiGUI, created by Miguel Rodríguez Lago, a physicist, and the science communication website: Centro Nacional de Aceleradores.
A documentary entitled the «Universo Extremo» (Extreme Universe), promoted by the Centro de Ciencias «Pedro Pascual» in Benasque describing the construction and commissioning of the MAGIC gamma-ray telescope at El Roque de los Muchachos (Isla de La Palma), won first price in the audiovisual materials category. The second prize in this category went to the video «Materia Extraña» (Strange Matter) by David Cabezas Jimeno.
Finally, the prizes under the Experiments/Demonstrations heading went to «La cámara de niebla: partículas de verdad» (The cloud chamber: real particles) by Francisco Barradas Solas, and «Cooking Muons», by Jorge Barrio Gómez de Agüero and Eva López. Both showed how to make “low cost” cloud chambers in which to detect particles.
This first edition of the CPAN Science Communication Competition awarded first and second prizes of 1,000 euros and 500 euros in the articles and websites categories and 1,500 and 600 euros for audiovisual materials and experiments. The jury was made up of four researchers representing the CPAN’s scientific areas (high energy experimental physics, astroparticle physics, nuclear physics and theoretical physics) and an external expert in science communication, the director of the University of Valencia’s science magazine Mètode, Martí Domínguez.
Spanish National Particle Physics, Astroparticles and Nuclear Physics Centre, CPAN (Centro Nacional de Física de Partículas, Astropartículas y Nuclear) is a Consolider-Ingenio 2010 project made up of 26 Spanish research groups whose main goals are to promote the coordinated participation of Spanish scientists in cutting edge particle physics, astroparticle and nuclear physics research, facilitate the incorporation of technical and research personnel, run joint R&D activities, technology transfer and scientific outreach in general.
