What does Australian singer/actress Olivia Newton-John have to do with the Nobel Prize? If you have recently visited either the Library’s new Physics Nobel Prize Web site (http://www.slac.stanford.edu/library/nobel) or the display in the Library, you would know.

The Prize by Irving Wallace, which the Library staff had spotted on a book rack, inspired Lesley Wolf and Kim Sutton to create the display.

The new Web site lists all the winners of the Nobel Prize in physics, why they won, with whom the prize was shared, where the Nobel work was performed, and other professional and biographical data, going back to 1901—the first year the Nobel Prize was awarded.

The team shows off their display. Shown left to right: Michael Hyde, Kim Sutton, Travis Brooks, Ann Redfield, Lesley Wolf and Kate Taylor (all TIS) (Photo by Matt Howard)

Gathering this data and building the Web site took many months of concerted effort. Library personnel Sutton, Pat Kreitz, Ann Redfield and Travis Brooks worked tirelessly to double-check and add new content to the revised site. "It was definitely a team effort," Sutton said, referring to all the research that had to be done for the new site.

It also has a ‘Quick Facts’ page that includes facts that you most likely didn’t know about the winners of the Physics Nobel Prize. This page is the basis for the quiz featured on the SLAC Library display.

The quiz has a scoring system, so you can see if you’re a ‘Genius’ or an ‘Also Ran’. On the left side of the display is an ensemble of pictures of Physics Nobel Prize winners Burton Richter (DO), Richard Taylor (EA) and Martin Perl (EE). In the display case is one of the very formal dresses worn by Taylor’s wife, Rita, at the Nobel ceremony in Sweden in December 1990.

Chip Dalby, Terry Anderson and Michael Hyde (all TIS) helped to create the Nobel logo on the site and for the display.