South Korea Hosts Physics Olympiad

Thirty-one competitors earned gold medals at the 35th International Physics Olympiad, which was held in Pohang, South Korea, in July. More than 300 high-school students from 71 countries participated. Alexander Mikhalychev of Belarus earned the top score; the US’s Elena Udovina was cited for the most original solution in the theory part of the competition—she was also the highest scoring female. The team from China was the only one to win all golds, capturing first place for their country; tallied by scores, Iran took second place, followed by South Korea, Belarus, Ukraine, the US, Taiwan, Hungary, Russia, and Romania.

All five US competitors earned medals: Udovina, of Solon, Ohio, and Yi Sun of San Jose, California, took home golds; Anson Hook of Princeton, New Jersey, and Eric Mecklenburg of Chagrin Falls, Ohio, garnered silvers; and Jeffrey Middleton of Austin, Texas, won a bronze. The US team was sponsored by the American Association of Physics Teachers and the American Institute of Physics.

In the theoretical part of the competition, contestants had to calculate the current carried by a small conducting disk as it bounced between two oppositely charged plates; find how high a helium-filled balloon would rise before its buoyant force is balanced by its weight; and determine the parameters that control a scanning probe microscope and derive a formula that gives the distance from the tip of the microscope’s cantilever to an electron buried in the sample. In the experimental part, they had to figure out two spring constants and the mass of a ball for a system concealed in a cylindrical black box.

Other highlights during the nine-day event included a contest to build a contraption that would survive a 15-meter fall (the Russian team won), visits to Korean homes, and a talk by Nobelist Robert Laughlin, the newly appointed head of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.

Next year’s physics olympiad will be held in July in Salamanca, Spain.