Chalmers has been selected to represent Sweden in the International Physicists' Tournament (IPT) after defeating KTH in the Swedish qualifiers. The tournament will take place in Warsaw in mid-April.
During the second weekend of December, teams of six from Chalmers University of Technology and the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) competed in experimental physics. Over the past three months, the teams had been working on physics problems and were now presenting their results. The Swedish qualifier for the international competition IPT, which took the form of an interactive conference, lasted just over four hours.
To ensure fair assessment of the teams' performances, a jury of researchers was present, including representatives from Chalmers, the University of Gothenburg, KTH, and the Technical University of Denmark (DTU).
The result was historically close: Chalmers won with 68.12 points against KTH’s 67.80 points. The narrow margin of 0.32 points is four times smaller than Chalmers' winning margin last year.
In addition to the conference presentations, participants demonstrated their skills in quick calculations. One question posed was: “How many atoms would it take to mint Sweden's GDP in one-krona coins?” Viktor Sundström from Chalmers managed to calculate an answer of 2e33 within minutes, which was within 20 per cent of the correct answer. However, these quick calculations only earned prestige, not points.
Thanks to their victory in the Swedish qualifiers, Chalmers is now registered for the international IPT tournament, which will take place in Warsaw in mid-April. This marks the third consecutive year that Chalmers has defeated KTH to represent Sweden in IPT. Last year, Chalmers placed eighth out of 21 countries.
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The team consists of:
Supervisor: Victor González from Physics at the University of Gothenburg
Team members: Adam Herbertsson, Nils Müller, Joel Ekeberg, Jack Elliot Collier Ryder, Viktor Sundström (team captain)
Writer: Åke Andersson, Sweden’s national representative in IPT
Photo: Marin Gecaj