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"International Physics Olympiads International Physics Olympiads (IPhO): Their History, Structure and Future Waldemar Gorzkowski * Central European countries. The invitations were accepted by Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania (five countries including Poland, the organiser of the competition). Each team consisted of three This is upgraded version of the secondary school students accompanied article published in "International by one supervisor. The competition was Physics Competitions: International arranged along the lines of the final stage Physics Olympiads and First Step to Nobel Prize in Physics", ed. by of the Polish Physics Olympiad: one day Waldemar Gorzkowski Waldemar Gorzkowski, Instytut for theoretical problems and one day for Fizyki PAN, Warszawa 1999 [ISBN 83-904922-2-9], pp. 7 - 24. carrying out an experiment. One obvious difference was that the participants had to wait for the scripts to be marked. During the waiting period the organisers arranged two excursions by plane to Kraków and to Gdańsk. At the first IPhO the students had 1. SHORT HISTORY OF THE sors deserves particular praise: Czesław to solve four theoretical problems and one Śoisłowski from Poland, Rostislav Kostial experimental problem. IPhO The International Physics Olympiad from Czechoslovakia and Rudolf Kunfalvi The second Olympiad was organised by (IPhO) is an international physics competi- from Hungary. Each of them investigated tion for secondary school students. The first various possibilities of organising the first Prof. Rudolf Kunfalvi in Budapest, Hungary, such competition was organised by Prof. International Physics Olympiad in his coun- in 1968. Eight countries took part in that Czesław Śoisłowski in Warsaw (Poland) try. It was concluded that Poland offered competition — The German Democratic in 1967. Since that time the International the best conditions and the most favourable Republic, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia Physics Olympiads have been organised, atmosphere for such an event. This, together joined the participating countries. Again, with few exceptions that will be discussed with a great personal contribution by Prof. each country was represented by three high Czesław Śoisłowski, resulted in the first school students and one supervisor. Some later, in a different country every year. international physics competition that took time before the second IPhO a preliminary version of the Statutes and the Syllabus were The possibility of organising the Inter- place in Warsaw in 1967. produced. Later the International Board national Physics Olympiads was suggested One should underline here an essential consisting of the supervisors of the teams before 1967. It was clear that the International Physics Olympiads should be an difference between the International Math- that participated in the competition officially annual event like the International Math- ematics Olympiads and the International accepted these documents. This took place ematics Olympiad, which was already in Physics Olympiads. At the International during a special meeting organised in Brno, existence; organised in 1959. The success of Physics Olympiads the participants solve Czechoslovakia, several months after the the International Mathematics Olympiads, not only theoretical problems but also the second IPhO. It is proper to underline that, and the positive experience gained from its experimental problems. For this reason the in spite of various changes made later, all organisation, greatly stimulated physicists organisation of the competition in physics the basic features of the first Statutes remain involved in physics education and inter- is more complicated and more expensive. valid to this day. ested in comparison of knowledge of the The third IPhO was arranged by Prof. Several months before the first IPhO best students from different countries. The hard work and dedication of three Profes- took place, invitations were sent to all the Rostislav Kostial in Brno, Czechoslovakia, in *Institute of Physics Polish Academy of Sciences al.Lotników 32/46, 02-226 Warszawa, Poland E-mail: gorzk@ifpan.edu.pl AAPPS Bulletin June 2007, Vol. 17, No. 3 International Physics Olympiads (IPhO): Their History, Structure and Future 1969. On that occasion each team consisted b) the number of working languages (pre- problems in place of one, previously set. of five students and two supervisors. The viously Russian, English, German and competition in Brno was organised according French was reduced to two, English In 1983 the IPhO was organised, for the to the official Statutes accepted earlier. and Russian; second time, in Bucharest, Romania. Here c) there should be one rest day between the the number of problems prepared by the The next Olympiad took place in Mostwo examination days; organisers for the pupils much exceeded cow, Soviet Union, in 1970. Each country d) the criteria for prizes should be expressed the number of problems mentioned in the was represented by six students and two in percentages with respect to the highest Statutes, and the International Board spent supervisors. During that Olympiad several score received in a given competition a lot of time discussing the Statutes and the small changes were introduced into the (formerly range of mark for prizes had Syllabus and the future of the Olympiads. Statutes. been determined with respect to the highest theoretically possible score). As regards the future of the International Since the fifth IPhO, held in Sofia, BulPhysics Olympiads, there was only one garia, in 1971, each team has consisted of In 1975, 1976 and 1977 the International important decision made in Bucharest. It five pupils and two supervisors. Physics Olympiads took place in the Ger- was decided that the next competition would man Democratic Republic for the first time, take place in Sweden in 1984. Unfortunately, The sixth IPhO was held in Bucharest, Hungary, for the second time, and Czecho- there were no volunteers to organise the Romania, in 1972. It was an important slovakia, for the second time, respectively. Olympiads in 1985, 1986 and 1987. In such event because among the participants a situation, upon suggestion of Dr. Gunter there were present for the first time, the In spring 1977 in Ulan-Bator, Mongolia, Lind (FRG), the International Board decided first non-European country (Cuba) and there was a Conference of the Ministers to establish a permanent Secretariat (conthe first Western country (France). At this of Education of the, so-called, Socialist sisting of one person: Dr. Waldemar GorzOlympiad the International Board decided Countries. The Conference decided that kowski) for co-ordination of the long-term to introduce several changes into the Stat- the socialist countries would organise the work of the International Physics Olympiads utes (however, no written proposal of the International Chemistry, Mathematics and and for popularising the Olympiads. At the changes was produced). Physics Olympiads every two years. Some same time it was decided that the Secretariat people treated this decision as a political together with Prof. Lars Silverberg (SweUnfortunately, in 1973 there was no Olym- one, aiming to reduce contacts between den), the organiser of the next competition piad as no country was willing to organise pupils from East and West. This aspect in Sigtuna, Sweden, in 1984, should prepare it, although the number of participating should not be ignored, but certainly the a new version of the Statutes. countries exceeded the number of the past decision was a consequence of the increasOlympiads. When it seemed likely that the ing number of participating countries and The project of revising the Statutes was International Physics Olympiads would rapidly increasing organisational costs. completed and the new Statutes were acdie, Poland took the initiative of reviving Regardless of real reasons, according to cepted at the ninth IPhO. There are, in the international competition and organised common interpretation the above decision fact, only minor differences between the the seventh IPhO in Warsaw in 1974 (for the was commonly interpreted as an implicit old and new versions. The most essential second time). On this occasion the Federal invitation to other countries to take charge difference is that the new version legalised Republic of Germany was invited to attend of the international scientific Olympiads. the existence of the Secretariat of the Interthe competition for the first time. This fact This explains why in 1978 and in 1980 national Physics Olympiad, consisting of certainly had a symbolic significance. there were no Olympiads; no non-socialist two persons (in terminology used recently: country was ready to organise the competi- President and Secretary — Dr. Waldemar Before the competition, the Organising tion without a prior, necessary long-time Gorzkowski and Dr. Andrzej Kotlicki1). Committee introduced into the Statutes the preparation effort. The first IPhO organised Another change instituted was that at the verbal changes discussed and accepted in by non-socialist country was the XIII IPhO experimental part of the competition the Bucharest. The new version of the Statutes that took place in Malente, FRG, in 1982. participants could be set one or two experiwas sent to all the countries invited to the It was due to very efficient work done by mental tasks, earlier only one was allowed. competition for acceptance or comments. Dr. Gunter Lind. Then, for the first time, One can say that the new version differed The wording suggested by the Organising the participants solved, under agreement of from the old one primarily in wording. The Committee was accepted (with only one the International Board, two experimental new version was much more precise. voice against). The most important changes were as follows: a) the number of theoretical problems was 1 Dr. Andrzej Kotlicki (Poland-Canada) after three five-year terms (1984-1999) resigned from his function. In 1999 Dr. Maija Ahtee (Finland) was elected as the Sectretary. reduced from four to three; AAPPS Bulletin June 2007, Vol. 17, No. 3 International Physics Olympiads The delegation heads, consisting of two persons from each participating country, form the, so-called, International Board, which is the highest authority of the International Physics Olympiads. The International Board does not change significantly from year to year. The majority of members know each other very well. In the International Board there is a very pleasant, friendly atmosphere. Thanks to this attitude, and good will, many difficult problems can be solved without great effort. This is why the Secretariat was able, for instance, to solve the problem of organisation of the International Physics Olympiads in 1985, 1986 and 1987. In 1985 the International Physics Olympiad took place in Portoroż (Yugoslavia), in 1986 — in London-Harrow (Great Britain) and in 1987 — in Jena (GDR). Here we would like to emphasise that the United Kingdom organised the XVII IPhO in London-Harrow within only two years from its entry into the competition! It was made possible through hard work and great enthusiasm of Dr. Cyril Isenberg, Dr. Guy Bagnall and Mr. William Jarvis. Due to joint efforts of the Secretariat and the organisers of the competitions in 1985 (Prof. Anton Moljk and Dr. Bojan Golli) and in 1986 (Dr. Guy Bagnall and Dr. Cyril Isenberg) a new version of the Syllabus was produced. Its theoretical part was accepted in Portoroż in 1985 and first applied in London-Harrow in 1986. Later, following a suggestion of the International Board, the Secretariat prepared a new, so called, column version of the Syllabus. This version shows not only the breadth of the physics contents but also the depth of approach required. The Syllabus of the International Physics Olympiads is indeed very modern. Nevertheless, the International Board is always ready to introduce improvements in the Statutes and Syllabus and does this when necessary. The competition has run every year subsequently — the list of participating and organising countries is shown in Tables 1 and 2. Table 1 Explanation: # : participation - : no participation H : host country O : observer U : unofficial participation (guest of the organisers) S : no participation for sanctions of the UN I : unofficial participation of individual pupils (they did not represent their country) 4 AAPPS Bulletin June 2007, Vol. 17, No. 3 International Physics Olympiads (IPhO): Their History, Structure and Future Following suggestion of Dr. Rodney Jory (Australia) in 1996 the International Board has decided to create an Advisory Committee convened at the President. At present the Advisory Committee consists of 14 persons with great experience in the “Olympiad work”. Every year some changes in the Statutes are made. Usually they are minor changes. Nevertheless, sometimes the changes are major. The last such change was made in 1999. The Statutes have been split into two parts; proper Statutes, and Regulations. Changes in the part called “Statutes” re- Table 2 quire qualified majority when voting, while changes in the part called “Regulations” require a simple majority only. In this way the most important points of the “Olympiad law” have been separated from the points that are of less importance. The operation of splitting the Statutes was the most important change since 1984 and was taken with care. The idea of splitting, formulated by Dr. Rodney Jory (Australia) in 1997, after preliminary discussion (almost only by e-mail) in 1997/8 was accepted by the International Board in 1998 in Reykjavik, Iceland. Then a subcommission consisting of four persons was created: Dr. Gunter Lind, Dr. Cyril Isenberg, Dr. Vidar Agustsson and Dr. Waldemar Gorzkowski. The subcommission prepared, mainly due to work of Dr. Gunter Lind, a version of the split Statutes, which later was discussed at a special meeting of the Advisory Committee in Warsaw in March 1999. After that the version accepted by the Advisory Committee was accepted by the International Board at the thirtieth IPhO in Padova, Italy. The last versions of the Statutes, Regulations, Syllabus and other Olympiad documents may be downloaded from the Olympic home page http://www.jyu.fi/ipho localized in Finland and maintained by Prof. Maija Ahtee. Here we would like to highlight the efficient functioning of the Secretariat due to not only to personal efforts of its members but also to the assistance of the members of the International Board. It is proper to mention here the help of Dr. Gunter Lind (FRG), Prof. Helmuth Mayr (Austria), Prof. Lars Silverberg (Sweden), Prof. Lars Gislen (Sweden), Mr. Nicola Velchev (Bulgaria), Dr. Hans Jordens (The Netherlands), Dr. Dwight Neuenschwander (USA), and others. 2. STRUCTURE OF THE COMPETITION Comment: Organization of the event by two countries in 2016 exceptionally accepted by the International Board in 2005. The competition lasts for two days. One day is devoted to theoretical problems (three problems involving at least four areas of physics taught in secondary schools). Another day is devoted to experimental AAPPS Bulletin June 2007, Vol. 17, No. 3 International Physics Olympiads problems (one or two problems). These two days are separated by at least one day of rest. On both occasions the time allotted for solving the problems is five hours. Each team consists of students from general or technical secondary schools (not colleges or universities). Typically each team consists of five students (pupils) and two supervisors. The latter form the International Board. It would make no sense to repeat here the description of the competition as it may be found in the Statutes of the International Physics Olympiads. We would like to underline several important features: 1) The problems are given to the pupils in their national languages and the pupils solve the problems in their mother tongues; IPhO is a competition in physics, not in foreign languages. 2) The marks awarded by the organisers are compared with the marks awarded by the delegation heads, and discussed by the organisers and delegation heads until an agreed mark has been reached. In this way justice of classification is ensured. 3) For a long time the winners were classified into categories according to the following rules: The mean value of points accumulated by the three best participants is considered normalised to 100%. number of prizes in each category was not limited. Due to that changes of some scores, following, for example, a discussion between the heads of the delegations and the markers, resulting in a “shift” of some participants from, for example, the group of second prize-winners to the group of first prize-winners, the category of the prize of any other participants does not change. Thus, the delegation leaders representing different countries do not compete against each other. This was a very important point. Unfortunately, the above system of awarding prizes led to great fluctuation in the numbers of trophies of different categories. To make life of the organizers easier and to ensure reasonable number of prizes the system of awarding prizes was changed. It is described in the Statutes (see the Olympic home page). You may ask: what about a team classification? The answer is very simple: such a classification does not exist. The IPhO is a competition between individuals only. There is no team result. Nevertheless, some people try to establish a kind of unofficial team classification. Some of them take a direct sum of scores as the result of the team. Some of them take the sum of scores of the three best participants in each team. Some of them take, for each team, the three best results in each problem independently and so on, and so on. Of course, the final table depends on the method of calculating the team results, and probably one can always find some strange system of counting the team results that will show a team to be the best or one of the best ones. Non-existence of team classification is important. We do not wish to introduce rivalry between nations. this concerns the costs of local travels, lodging, excursions, awards, etc. Recently the International Board considered several times different proposals aiming to introduce certain participation fee. Taking into account different financial possibilities of different countries, in 1997 a voluntary fee was introduced. It seems, however, that in the future the voluntary fee will be converted into an obligatory fee. The number of participating countries is, however, continually increasing — see Table 1. In 2006 82 countries sent their teams to the 37th IPhO in Singapore. Every year new countries join the competition and organisation of the competition becomes more and more expensive. Moreover, it is more and more difficult to organise the experimental part of the competition so that all the students have the same experimental conditions of work. We can ask: What will be the maximum number of countries? How long can the number of participating countries increase without any changes (assuming the same structure of the competition)? Should we start thinking about “Olympiad Villages”? Until now the organisers were always able to solve all the organisational problems related to the increasing number of participants. Some time ago I was sure that the maximum number of countries present at a given Olympiad would not exceed sixty. But in the meantime certain political processes took place, such as the break up of the Soviet Union, the break up of Yugoslavia, etc. In consequence of them many new countries were created. Most of them are interested in participation in the IPhO. Now it seems that the number of countries really interested in the IPhO every year shall not exceed eighty or ninety. Eighty countries with five students ..."

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