TIFR’s Praveen Pathak, who led the international team, said the Indian students performed exceptionally well in the competition.
It was a proud moment as all five Indian students who participated in the 49th International Physics Olympiad (IPhO) 2018 in Lisbon, Portugal, won gold medals.
Kolkata’s Siddharth Tiwary, Bhaskar Gupta from Mumbai, Nishant Abhangi from Rajkot, Pawan Goyal from Jaipur and Lay Jain from Kota are the students who helped India achieve its best medal tally in the competition’s history. This year's competition ended yesterday (29 July).
Praveen Pathak, the scientific officer at Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), who led the international team, said Indian participants performed exceptionally well.
Abhangi is a Class XII student and is preparing for ZEE (Advanced) while Jain and Goyal were among the top-10 rankers of ZEE (Advanced) this year. Jain is heading to MIT, US, to pursue a joint course in physics and computer science while Tiwary has opted for engineering physics in IIT, Bombay.
Talking to a reporter, Goyal said the experimental component was delicate while the theoretical exam was more comfortable, and the three scored 29 to 30 out of 30 marks. Homi Bhabha centre picked the five through a rigorous process, and the team will be felicitated by the centre.
According to the competition’s website, “IPhO is an annual competition in physics for secondary school students, aiming at promoting physics and the development of international contacts in physics education. It involves individual theoretical and experimental competitions in physics.
“The IPhO 1st edition took place in Warsaw, Poland, in 1967, with 5 participating countries. Since then, IPhO has grown to worldwide coverage involving more than 85 countries and 400 competitors.”
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