At the last minute, Switzerland is hosting the virtual International Physics Olympiad
400 high school students from 75 countries took part in the 52nd International Physics Olympiad (IPhO), which took place from July 10th to 17th. Belarus was supposed to host the event, but many national team organizers had planned to boycott the competition over the country’s support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The event was nearly canceled until Switzerland stepped in to host the competition virtually by coordinating a series of online tests.
China’s Guowei Xu had the best overall score, and his teammates Mingxuan Yang and Qiancheng Li received the highest scores in experiment and theory, respectively. All five members of the Chinese team won gold medals. The teams from Romania and South Korea were the second highest winners, with four members from each nation winning gold and one from each silver. The Ukrainian team finished with a silver medal, three bronze medals and an honorable mention.
Countries are proud of their teams’ achievements, but officially participants compete as individuals and not as teams. The IPhO International Board welcomed high school students from Russia and Belarus, but they were not allowed to represent their countries. Students from both countries took gold, and a few others earned a silver or bronze medal or honorable mention. In an interview, the US team’s academic director, Tengiz Bibilashvili, emphasized the non-political nature of international competition and its need to set standards for physics education at universities.
The US team brought home three gold and two silver medals. Rishab Parthasarathy of San Jose, California was sixth overall. He won a gold medal, as did teammates Alex Gu of San Jose and Evan Erickson of Lake Elmo, Minnesota. Collin Fan from Lincolnshire, Illinois and Rowchen Zhong from Austin, Texas won silver. The five were selected to represent the US from a group of 20 team members who graduated from the University of Maryland at College Park in June. The US team is supported by the American Association of Physics Teachers, the American Institute of Physics (which also publishes physics today) and other AIP member societies.
For this year’s experimental exam, organizers challenged students with simulation programs on planetary and atmospheric properties and on cylindrical diodes. The program used in the cylindrical diode question allowed students to simulate an unlimited number of current measurements for different sets of input parameters such as radius and length. The theoretical test covered, among other things, the interactions between different types of magnets.
The 53rd International Physics Olympiad will take place in Tokyo next summer.