The University of Colorado at Boulder's Physics 2000 Web site has been honored by Scientific American magazine with a 2002 Sci-Tech Web Award for physics.
Scientific American editors selected five Web sites in each of 10 scientific categories to receive the awards. The winning sites are posted on the Scientific American Web site at .
The Physics 2000 Web site "promises 'an interactive journey through modern physics' -- and it doesn't disappoint in that regard," the magazine's editors wrote. "There are areas that focus on the underlying basic science concepts behind many devices used today and classical quantum physics; the generous use of applets help bring the concepts to full-motion life."
Created by CU-Boulder physics Professor Martin Goldman, the Physics 2000 Web site allows users to conduct more than 65 interactive "virtual experiments" on their computer screens with easy-to-understand explanations accompanying the experiments. Goldman came up with the idea as a way to improve public attitudes toward physics.
The site is built around topics of general interest, including X-rays, microwave ovens and CAT scans. 2001 Nobel laureate and CU-Boulder Distinguished Professor Carl Wieman helped create the portion of the site on Bose-Einstein condensate, a new form of matter he co-created in 1995 by chilling atoms to almost absolute zero.
The Physics 2000 Web site is intended for non-scientists and students of all ages and is free to anyone with Internet access at . The site is best viewed with Netscape version 3.0 or higher and a 28.8 modem or faster with at least 16 MB of available RAM.
Other winning sites in the physics category included "The Pendulum Lab," "The Official String Theory Web Site," "Gallery of Fluid Dynamics" and "Warner Heisenberg and the Uncertainty Principle."
Scientific American gave Sci-Tech Web Awards in 10 categories including archaeology and paleontology, astronomy and astrophysics, biology, chemistry, computer science, earth and environment, engineering and technology, mathematics, medicine and physics.