Wave image wins photography prize
An image captured at a University research facility has won a top prize in a national science photography competition.
‘Wowing the Crowds’, by Stuart Brown, of the FloWave Ocean Energy Research Centre, took first place in the Equipment category of the annual competition, organised by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).
The winning image shows a 9.5m ‘spike’ wave created for a crowd during a public open-day in September 2015.
Science Photography Competition
The competition received over 200 entries which were drawn from researchers in receipt of EPSRC funding.
Its five categories were: Eureka, Equipment, People, Innovation and Weird and Wonderful.
Yet again, the standard of entries into this year’s competition shows the inquisitive, artistic and perceptive nature of the people EPSRC supports. I’d like to thank everyone who entered; you made judging a very hard but enjoyable task.
FloWave
Twice a year, the FloWave Ocean Energy Research Facility opens its doors to the public.
The image shows a group behind the facility’s most impressive ‘party trick’ - the Spike - during the 2015 ‘Edinburgh Doors Open Day’.
More technically described as a ‘Concentric Wave Singularity’, the ‘backwards ripple’ combines more than 2000 waves into a central focus and is analogous to a two-dimensional supernova.
The huge spike easily hits the ceiling 9.5m above the water’s surface, and is one of the highlights of the demonstration where a variety of ‘party tricks’ are shown alongside the test facility’s more usual task of accurately replicating the ocean at scale.