NEWSLETTER – July 20th 2012 www.ipho2012.ee/newsletter
Issue nO.6
Putting theory into practice
T
he second, and final, examination day divided students into two groups – A and B. First group had to wake up an hour earlier to have breakfast and once again make their way to the Estonian University of Life Sciences, where the experimental task would take place. Group B went to AHHAA Science Centre, where participants were able to take their minds off the upcoming test. It´s a perfect place for physicists – you can look around the technology hall, the living and exhibition hall, the planetarium etc, as well as take part in different workshops, where many of the students made lemonade and others learned about DNA. “It´s really exciting to be here, everything has been put into practice, so it´s interesting to see how things work in real life,” said Munkhtsetseg from Mongolia. “And I loved the mirror room the most, it was really funny bumping into each other constantly.“ Chi
from the Peoples Republic of China and Colombia´s student Andres agreed that it was pretty cool and made learning chemistry or physics more interesting. Chi didn´t see any problems with going there before the exam. ”It´s a bit tiring, of course, but luckily we had enough sleep yesterday.“ And Andres laughed, saying: ”Maybe it will give us some pointers for the upcoming experiment.“ For most of them, time practically flew by and they found themselves heading towards the University. Just minutes before the security check Poland´s delegation member Michal found time to share his expectations and thoughts about the final exam. “There is no point for us to be nervous nor excited, because it won´t change anything, so I´d rather not think about it at all.“ In spite of the assumptions that the experimental part would be easier, many students declared that its difficulty was far from their expectations.
Photo: Siim Pille
Tartu – the World Capital of Physics
Latvia´s team said that the problems were really hard and many other delegations agreed with them. Chan from Hong Kong went along with their opinion saying that it was definitely easier than the theoretical one, but still not as easy as they would have hoped. He added that nobody expected that level of difficulty, considering previous IPhO problems. And Oguzhan from Turkey had a problem with time. ”It took a long time to do about four graphs for a necessary question, so I´m afraid I didn´t manage to do all of them correctly, but otherwise it was okay.“ After the first emotions started to fade, participants started to think about the upco ming days. The biggest work here has been done, now it´s time to truly enjoy themselves without feeling the pressure, nor the need to study. ”We are going out to celebrate tonight and will keep on celebrating for the next five days,“ said Tobias from Austria. Text: Kristiina Stõkova
Picture gallery
Announcement
Photo: Siim Pille
All the IPhO participants are invited to the introduction event of the National University of Singapore. The event takes place tomorrow at 14.00 in Viru hotel’s Andante conference room.
Game of colors.
Photo: Siim Pille
Photo: Siim Pille
It seems that they are creating a storm.
Welcome to the tea party.
Photo: Andres Mihkelson.
Photo: Siim Pille
Photo: Andres Mihkelson.
A million dollar view.
You can recognize the brilliant mind even from a distance.
Happy Birthday! Kamsul Abraha
Read extra articles about the skype symphony and a trip to the wilderness. See who’s taking care of our food and try to find yourself from the IPhO photo gallery. www.ipho2012.ee/newsletter
Physics is in the Air.
E
stonia hosting IPhO 2012 became the incentive for proclaiming the period between September 2011 and September 2012 a year of science in our country. The objective is to raise youth inte rest in exact, natural and technical sciences and towards career choices related to these subject areas. Under the auspices of the year of science, hundreds of events will take place in schools, towns and counties organised by the partners of the year of science – schools, universities, associations, societies etc. One of the main events will take place on 20 July when Tartu will be proclaimed the World Capital of Physics within the IPhO 2012. The idea that the host city could bear that title was also introduced to IPhO president Dr Hans Jordens who found the initiative worthwhile. The objectives of proclaiming the host city as the World Capital of Physics are to highlight the importance of natural and exact sciences and valuation of education, creativity and purposeful self-development. Since IPhO is a relatively closed event, it is essential to acknowledge the bridge between IPhO and the host city and strengthen its international reputation and advance potential international relations.
Numerous public events will take place during that day in Tartu – the first ”World Capital of Physics“. At the same time, annual Hanseatic days will commence in Tartu. At 12 o’clock, the ceremony declaring Tartu as the World Capital of Physics will take place. The IPhO delegation will hand over the symbolic regalia of the capital of physics to the Mayor of Tartu. Subsequently everyone is welcome to the historic Toome Hill where the Science Town is set up during the Hanseatic days. The Science Town includes tens of hands-on workshops, shows by the scien ce bus of the Estonian Physical Society, the 2007 winner of the EU prize for Science Communication. In addition, there is a possibility to visit the 200-year-old observatory which was affirmed in the world science history by its director F.G.F. Struve who was the first to measure the distance between a star and Earth in 1835. Tartu Observatory has belonged to the UNESCO World Heritage since 2005. In the history museum of the University of Tartu it is possible to get acquainted with the university’s history and contemporary situation. The participants of IPhO will be interested in the University Fair, an idea by Stanislav Zavjalov who was an Estonian IPhO team member 2007-2009 and is cur-
Viire Sepp
Photo: Margus Ansu
Year of science and Tartu – the World Capital of Physics
rently a student at the University of Oxford. The University Fair will feature presentations on enrolment and study opportunities by Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Oxford, National University of Singapore, Tallinn University of Technology and University of Tartu. The honorary guest of IPhO, Nobel Prize winner Sir Harold Kroto will give an academic lecture at the Vanemuise Concert Hall in the evening and the day will be concluded with the reception by the Mayor of Tartu. Text: Viire Sepp
Sir Harold Kroto
S
ir Harold Kroto was born on 7 October 1939 in Wisbech, United Kingdom. He had a rather challenging childhood: his father made him always finish all of his homework and made him stay up late until the work had passed his father´s inspection – midnight if necessary. As time progressed Sir Kroto gravitated towards chemistry, physics and maths. He was attracted by the smells and bangs that endowed chemistry with that slight but charismatic element of danger. Because of his chemistry teacher Harry Heaner, who thought that the University of Sheffield had the best chemistry department in the UK, Harold went to Sheffield. In 1961 he obtained a first class Bachelor of Science honours degree in chemistry, followed in 1964 by a PhD at the same institution. His doctoral research involved highresolution electronic spectra of free radicals produced by flash photolysis (breaking of chemical bonds by light). In the 1970s he launched a research programme at Sussex University, where he was
teaching, to look for carbon chains in the interstellar medium. Kroto’s group searched for spectral evidence of longer molecules such as cyanobutadiyne, H-C≡C-C≡C-C≡N, and found them from 1975–1978. Trying to explain them led to the discove ry of the C60 molecule (buckminsterfulle rene). He heard of laser spectroscopy work being done by Richard Smalley and Robert Curl at Rice University in Texas. He sugges ted that they should use the Rice apparatus to simulate the carbon chemistry that occurs in the atmosphere of a carbon star. The experiment carried out in September 1985 not only proved that carbon stars could produce the chains but also revealed the exis tence of the C60 species. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was shared by Curl, Kroto and Smalley in 1996. Used materials: The Official Web Site of the Nobel Prize: www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/ laureates/1996/kroto-autobio.html Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Kroto Text: Kristiina Stõkova
Delegates
Feynman’s Corner
Sandcastle (solution) In the case of a sandcastle, the grains are kept together with capillary forces. The grains are wetting, and a water neck is formed between a pair of touching grains. The capillary force of the water-air interface of such a neck “glues” two grains together. So, the capillary forces bet ween grains will appear only if both air and water are present. Pulling out a nail Suppose there is a nail hit partly into a wall. It would be very difficult to pull it out with pincers using a straight pulling movement. However, if you rotate the nail while pulling, you can easily do it. Why?
Tesseract This is a tesseract – a 4D hypercube. Try to count its vertices, edges, faces (squares) and cells (3-faces, cubes). Sure you have solved the problem of resistance of “the resistor cube”, ie the resistance between the diagonal vertices of a cube, where each edge represents a 1Ω resistor. Try now the same for “the resistor tesseract”.