Awarded annually to the undergraduate student who submits the best photograph or written or other description of some natural physical phenomenon personally observed during the previous year.
AEM Geddes OBE FRSE was on the staff of the Department of Natural Philosophy (the old name for Physics at Aberdeen) from 1909 to 1955. The Prize was inaugurated by his daughters.
His speciality was meteorology and his 1921 book Meteorology: An Introductory Treatise has numerous examples relevant to Aberdeen. It was illustrated by George Aubourne Clarke's internationally acclaimed cloud photographs, taken at King's College.
Since "a picture is worth a thousand words", the prize has gone to the best photograph in recent years.
You are able to see a few shooting stars as I set the shutter for around 5 minutes, away from any light disruption. This photo doesn’t even begin to capture what it was like to see the sky this clear in person.
Sunday 7th May 2006, at Cruden Bay.
Taken from Krakus Mound in Krakow, Poland.
The time-lapse photo makes the turbulent water appear like smoke.
The focus of the camera is on the people, making the falling snow between the camera and the group of people appear distorted and out of focus.
A photo showing leaves in a wood succumbing to disease.
Layered lava deposits following a volcanic eruption. Note the person in the bottom right, for scale.
A photo showing the Glasgow Science Centre viewed through a wet window, inducing complex distortion patterns.
A TV aerial was used to hold the thin film. The film was imaged in a dark room illuminated by a 200-watt light. I blew lightly over the film to disrupt its surface and give an irregular interference pattern.
The laser was a HL202 Laser Pointer. A camera tripod was used to hold it and two holes were punched through the magnetic film from a floppy disk. The film was 5mm from the laser, and 8m from the screen.
Data is stored on a CD as a series of minute grooves in its surface. These are too small to see with the naked eye, but they lay out spiral tracks which act as a diffraction grating, producing the spectrum.
Circular waves on water propagate outwards. The fluid is a mixture of ink and water. The exposure time was 1 ms and the fluid was illuminated by a 200-watt light so there were enough photons to capture.
The Aberdeen esplanade with a large wave breaking against the seafront wall. Girdle Ness Lighthouse is visible in the background.
A close-up view of a rocky beach seen from above at the boundary between the land and the water.
The sea reflects the range of colours from red through to blue in the sunset sky.
