by the Australian Institute of Physics (SA branch)

in conjunction with the SOCIETY FOR PHYSICS, ASTRONOMY, COSMOLOGY & EXPERIMENTAL DEVICES

at 6-8 pm on Friday April 8^th 2005

in the foyer of the South Australian Museum

On Friday 8th April 2005, 120 invited AIP members, SPACED members, school teachers and government representatives attended the launch of the Einstein International Year of Physics in SA in the foyer of the SA Museum. The picture shows the year starting with a bang, as a hydrogen balloon was detonated by Ms Linda Cooper.

This photograph was taken with the shutter held open for about a second, and an electronic flash triggered sometime during this interval. The long exposure allowed the flame of the explosion to be recorded (but led to the blurred image of everything else). It is presumed that the flash produced what appears to be an image of the turbulent hot air produced by the explosion.

SPACED president Wade Shiell and AIP-SA Treasurer Dr Jamie Quniton

AIP-SA branch chair Dr Olivia Samardzic

Ms Linda Cooper, of Project Catalyst

Ms Linda Cooper congratulates Mr Alan Pepper during presentation to him of the Inaugural Physics Teacher of the Year Award

Dr Olivia Samardzic presents Mr Alan Pepper with an extra to his award

Mr Norman Jones, General Manager of Coherent Scientific, which was one of the sponsors of the launch

A Van der Graff generator put on display by the Investigator Science and Technology Centre

The "Flowvis: the 'Art' of fluid dynamics" exhibition was opened at the launch