PHYSICS AND JAZZ
The prizewinning ceremony for the winners of the competition was held on 29 July at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon.
The event was long due to the large number of prizewinners, and honourable mentions and bronze, silver and gold medals were handed out. The final prizes were awarded by Tiago Brandão Rodrigues, Hans Jordens, president of IPhO, Conceição Abreu, president of the Portuguese Physics Society, and Carlos Martins de Andrade, director of the research and technology department at Galp.
There was also a place for jazz, due to the fact, as was explained in one of the films shown at the event, this type of music is undeniably connected to physics. In a message read out to those in attendance, the president of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, emphasised that “solving problems related to physics involves intuition, improvisation and a little rigour that jazz also has”.
The elections for IPhO were also held in Portugal at the same time as the 49th edition of the event, the name of the Singaporean Rajdeep Singh Rawat being announced as the new director. The host city of the 50th edition of the International Physics Olympiad was also presented: Tel Aviv, Israel.
What is IPhO?
IPhO is an annual competition between secondary school students, designed to promote physics and the development of international contacts in the teaching of the discipline. It rewards the best students from the nations involved with a place in the final, disputed in a different country every year, and consists of a test to find the best of the best prior to going to university.
The selection process is entrusted to the participating countries and consists, as a general rule, of the holding of domestic competitions, as happens in Portugal.
The teams are composed of a maximum of five students and two teachers.