CANADIAN ASSOCIATION OF PHYSICISTS

ASSOCIATION CANADIENNE DES PHYSICIENS ET PHYSICIENNES

Ottawa, April 24^th, 1998 - The Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP) is pleased to announce that its 1998 Medal for Excellence in Teaching Physics will be awarded to Professor S. Pedro Goldman of the University of Western Ontario.

Professor Goldman is an outstanding classroom teacher at all levels, from introductory first-year physics to graduate-level quantum mechanics, from a service course for students in Music Education to courses for Honors Physics students. In his lectures, he communicates his love for the subject matter with engrossing stories and an infectious sense of humour. Students remark particularly on his ability to explain difficult concepts in terms tuned to their level of understanding.

Course development and teaching come together admirably in his course on "The Physics of Music and Sound". In this stunningly successful course, Professor Goldman has carefully tailored the physics to match the needs, abilities, and strengths of the music students he is teaching. Two quotations from music students convey the extra dimension he brings to his lectures, and the personal rapport he establishes with his students. ". . . the greater thing which Dr. Goldman has taught us is that the very nature of music itself is the manifestation of laws which govern the universe. And the laws of the universe are infinitely beautiful." "We are going to miss taking his class, but even more importantly we are going to miss him."

Professor Pedro Goldman was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and came to the Department of Physics at the University of Western Ontario in 1983 following studies at the University of Buenos Aires, the Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, and the University of Windsor. He has been a Full Professor since 1993. He specializes in accurate calculations in relativistic atomic physics, many electron systems and atoms in high magnetic fields.

Pedro Goldman did his first teaching in 1983-84; at the end of the year the students insisted on nominating him for a teaching award. In 1994, the Student Council of the Faculty of Music established the S.P. Goldman Annual Award for Excellence in Teaching, and named Dr. Goldman himself as the first winner of the award. In 1996 he won the Edward G. Pleva Award for Excellence in Teaching, the pre-eminent teaching award at the University of Western Ontario.

The CAP's Medal for Excellence in Teaching Physics was introduced in 1996 and has been awarded annually since. The 1998 Medal will be presented to Prof. Goldman during the CAP's awards banquet to be held at the University of Waterloo on June 16th, 1998.

The Canadian Association of Physicists, founded in 1945, is a professional association representing over 1600 individual physicists and physics students as well as a number of Corporate and Departmental Members. In addition to its learned activities, the CAP also undertakes a number of activities intended to encourage students to pursue a career in physics.

For more information, please contact:

Canadian Association of Physicists
Tel: (613) 562-5614
Fax: (613) 562-5615
E-mail: cap@physics.uottawa.ca