physics

Science Writing Award

Science Writing Award is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Science Writing Award rather than just read about it. In short: The American Institute of Physics (AIP) instituted their Science Writing Award to "promote effective science communication in print and broadcast media in order to improve the general public's appreciation of physics, astronomy, and allied science fields." The winner receives $3000, and an engraved Windsor chair. The award is given in three broad categories: 1) science writing, 2) work intended for children, and 3)…

Key takeaways

Science Writing Award belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Science Writing Award to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Science Writing Award from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The American Institute of Physics (AIP) instituted their Science Writing Award to "promote effective science communication in print and broadcast media in order to improve the general public's appreciation of physics, astronomy, and allied science fields." The winner receives $3000, and an engraved Windsor chair. The award is given in three broad categories: 1) science writing, 2) work intended for children, and 3) work done in new media. The AIP stopped issuing awards to three categories: 1) work by a professional journalist (last awarded in 2011) 2) work by a scientist (last awarded in 2009), and 3) broadcast media (last awarded in 2009) Winners of this Science Writing Award include Nobel Prize winners Charles Townes, Steven Weinberg, and Kip Thorne; other notable winners include Simon Singh, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Lawrence Krauss, John Wheeler, Leonard Susskind, Clifford Martin Will, Abraham Pais, Heinz Pagels, Banesh Hoffmann, and Martin Gardner. Marcia Bartusiak has won the award three times, twice for her books (in 2019 and 2001) and once for her journalism (in 1982).

Winners: New Media 2012: - Anna Rothschild for Nova, "The Amazing Atomic Clock"

Past Winners: Books 2020: Susan Hockfield for The Age of Living Machines (W.W. Norton & Company). 2019: Marcia Bartusiak for Dispatches from Planet 3 (Yale University Press). 2019: David Hu for How to Walk on Water and Climb Up Walls (Yale University Press). 2018: David Baron for American Eclipse: A Nation's Epic Race to Catch the Shadow of the Moon and Win the Glory of the World (Liveright Publishing Corporation/W. W. Norton & Company). 2017: Timothy Jorgensen for Strange Glow: The Story of Radiation (Princeton University Press). 2016: Chris Woodford for Atoms Under the Floorboards: The Surprising Science Hidden in Your Home (Bloomsbury). 2015: Charles Adler for Wizards, Aliens, and Starships: Physics and Math in Fantasy and Science Fiction (Princeton University Press). 2014: Lee Billings for Five Billion Years of Solitude: the Search for Life Among the Stars (Current/Penguin).

Past Winners: Journalist 2011: George Musser for Scientific American magazine,"Could Time End?" 2010: Tom Zoellner for Penguin Group, "Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock that Shaped the World" 2008: Ann Finkbeiner for Viking/Penguin,"The Jasons" 2007: Tim Folger, Discover Magazine,"If an Electron can be in Two Places at Once, Why Can't You?" 2006: Barbara Goldsmith for WW Norton and Atlas Books, "Obsessive Genius" 2005: Michael Moyer for Popular Science, "Journey to the 10th Dimension" 2004: J. Madeleine Nash for Warner Books, El Niño: Unlocking the Secrets of the Master Weather-Maker 2003: Diane Tennant for The Virginian-Pilot,"A Cosmic Tale" 2002: No award given 2001: Marcia Bartusiak for Joseph Henry Press, Einstein's Unfinished Symphony 2000: Ron Cowen for USA Today, "Quantum Leap in Research Draws Cosmic Insight Closer"; Science News "Travelin' Light"; The Washington Post "Now Hear This!" 1999: Michael Lemonick, Other Worlds: The Search for Life in the Universe, Simon & Schuster 1998: Robyn Suriano and Todd Halvorson for Florida Today, "Cassini: Debating the Risks" 1997: Hazel Muir for New Scientist Magazine "Watch Out, Here Comes the Sun" and "A Fast Rain's Going to Fall" 1996: K.C. Cole for The Los Angeles Times,(3 newspaper articles) 1995: Gary Taubes for Discover Magazine, "Welcome to Femtoland" 1994: Dick Teresi for Omni Magazine, "The Last Great Experiment of the 20th Century" 1993: Billy Goodman for Air & Space Magazine, "The Planet Hunters" 1992: Dennis Overbye for Harper Collins Publishers, Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos 1991: Charles Petit for Mosaic Magazine, "Vanishingly Close to Absolute Zero" 1990: Jerry E. Bishop for The Wall Street Journal, "Cold Fusion" 1989: Timothy Ferris for William & Morrow Inc, Coming of Age in the Milky Way 1988: Richard Preston for The Atlantic Monthly Press, First Light 1987: Shannon Brownlee and Allan Chen for Discover Magazine, "Waiting for the Big One" 1986: Arthur Fisher for Mosaic, "Chaos: The Ultimate Asymmetry" 1985: Ben Patrusky for World Book Yearbook, "The Wandering Continents" 1984: John Tierney for Discover Magazine,"Perpetual Commotion" 1983: Martin Gardner for Discover Magazine, "Quantum Weirdness" 1982: Marcia Bartusiak for Discover Magazine, "The Ultimate Timepiece" 1981: Leo Janus for Science 80 Magazine,"Timekeepers of the Solar System" 1980: Dennis Overbye for Omni Magazine, "The Wizard of Time and Space" 1979: Robert C. Cowen for The Christian Science Monitor, "The New Astronomy" 1978: Timothy Ferris for The Red Limit: The Search for the Edge of the Universe 1977: William D. Metz for Science Magazine, "Fusion Research" 1976: Frederic Golden for Time Magazine, "Forecast: Earthquake" 1975: Tom Alexander for Fortune Magazine, "Ominous Changes in the World's Weather" 1974: Patrick Young for The National Observer, "A Quake Is Due at..." 1973: Edward Edelson for The New York News, "The Mystery of Space" 1972: Jerry E. Bishop for The Wall Street Journal, "Celestial Clue" 1971: Kenneth Weaver for National Geographic, "Voyage to the Planets" 1970: C.P. Gilmore for Popular Science, "Can We Stop Earthquakes from Happening" 1969: Walter S. Sullivan for The New York Times, "Flight of Apollo 8" 1968: William J. Perkinson for The Baltimore Sun, "ABM Primer: Physics for Defense"

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Science Writing Award

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Science Writing Award claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Science Writing Award before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Science Writing Award ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Science Writing Award

In research: Science Writing Award appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Science Writing Award in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Science Writing Award is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Awards of the American Institute of Physics, Science communication awards, Science writing awards, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Science Writing Award outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Science Writing Award in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Science Writing Award means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Science Writing Award out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Science Writing Award in simple terms?

Why does Science Writing Award matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Science Writing Award?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Science Writing Award.