St. Jude, Pisay kids bag silver, bronze at Int’l Physics Olympiad

The Philippine team. From left: Professor Ian Vega, Mikhail Torio, Steven Reyes, Charles Bartolo, and Professor Perry Esguerra. Photo: Philippine IPhO team

A Filipino high school student won a silver while two others each took bronze at the 49th International Physics Olympiad (IPhO) last month in Lisbon, Portugal.

St. Jude Catholic School's Steven Reyes earned a score of 8.55 in the competition's experimental exam and a 25.4 in the theorietical exam for a total score of 33.95, 13 points shy of "absolute" winner Yang Tianhua of China.

Two Philippine High School students made it to the bronze list, with Mikhail Torio from PSHS' main campus earning a total score of 25.12 and Charles Bartolo from the Central Luzon campus garnering 21.35 points.

The trio were accompanied by professors Perry Esguerra and Ian Vega from the University of the Philippines' National Institute of Physics. The three students underwent intensive training at the institute to prepare for the competition.

The Philippine delegation placed 34th out of 87 teams—the country's best result in 13 years of participating in the international competition.

This year's experimental exam tackled paper transistors and the viscoelastic properties of a polymer thread.

The theoretical exam involved questions about the detection of gravitational waves, the ATLAS instrument at the Large Hadron Collider, and the physics of blood flow and tumor growth.

The problems can be seen here. — BM, GMA News