Competitors meet in Copenhagen for Physics Olympiad

Hungary’s Attila Szabó was the top scorer for the second year running at the International Physics Olympiad (IPHO). This year’s competition was held 7–15 July in Copenhagen; some 380 high schoolers from 82 countries participated.

The teams from China and South Korea each took home five gold medals. Russia and Singapore each scored four golds and a silver, and the teams from the US, Thailand, and Taiwan won three golds and two silvers each.

On the US team, Calvin Huang and Jeffrey Yan of Palo Alto, California, and Kevin Zhou of Marlboro, New Jersey, earned gold medals; Huang placed first in the experimental part of the competition. Jeffrey Cai of Basking Ridge, New Jersey, and Samuel Zbarsky of Rockville, Maryland, earned silvers. This was the 12th straight competition for which every US competitor won a medal. The US team traveled with coaches Paul Stanley, a physics professor at Beloit College in Wisconsin, and 2009 IPHO gold medalist Marianna Mao, who just graduated in math and physics from Harvard University. The US team is sponsored by the American Association of Physics Teachers, the American Institute of Physics and its member societies, and the University of Maryland’s physics department and Joint Quantum Institute.

For the experimental part of the competition, the students used a laser range finder to measure the index of refraction of water and of a fiber-optic cable. They also made measurements on the efficiency of solar cells.

In one of the three theoretical questions, students modeled the effects of melting glaciers. Those who got it right came up with the surprising result that sea level around Copenhagen would drop if all the glaciers in Greenland melted. In another question, students estimated the efficiency of using solar-powered silver nanoparticles to boil water. The third question involved deducing properties of a small meteor that landed in Denmark in 2009: Using images from surveillance cameras and other data, the students had to figure out how fast the meteor was moving, how old it was, and where it came from, among other things.

When they weren’t busy with exams, students had time for fun and sightseeing. Among the highlights during the eight-day event were a pancake breakfast at Copenhagen’s mayoral office, concerts and amusement rides at Tivoli Gardens, various Viking exhibits, and a stroll through the autonomous neighborhood of Christiania.

Next year’s Olympiad will be held in Kazakhstan.