The International Young Physicists' Tournament (IYPT), sometimes referred to as the "Physics World Cup", is a scientific competition between teams of secondary school students. It mimics, as closely as possible, the real-world scientific research and the process of presenting and defending the results obtained.

Description Participants have almost a year to work on 17 open-ended inquiry problems that are published yearly in late July. A good part of the problems involves easy-to-reproduce phenomena presenting unexpected behaviour. The aim of the solutions is not to calculate or reach "the correct answer" as there is no such notion here. The Tournament is rather conclusions-oriented as participants have to design and perform experiments, and to draw conclusions argued from the experiments’ outcome.

The competition itself is not a pen-and-paper competition but an enactment of a scientific discussion (or a defence of a thesis) where participants take the roles of journalist reporter, opponent, and reviewer, learning about peer review early on in their school years. Discussion-based sessions are called Physics Fights and the performances of the teams are judged by expert physicists.

Teams can take quite different routes to tackle the same problem. As long as they stay within the broadly defined statement of the problem, all routes are legitimate and teams will be judged according to the depths reached by their investigations.

The IYPT is a week-long event in which currently around 200 international pre-university contestants participate.

IYPT is associated with The European Physical Society (EPS) and in 2013, IYPT was awarded the medal of The International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) "in recognition of its inspiring and wide-ranging contribution to physics education that has touched many lives and countries, over the past 25 years".

History The International Young Physicists' Tournament (IYPT) originated in the former Soviet Union and expanded internationally in 1988. Following its European roots, the tournament expanded globally, with the first non-European event held in Brisbane, Australia, in 2004. Participation has since grown to over 38 countries, representing every continent.

Over time the IYPT has transitioned from a community initiative to a formally registered corporation. National organizations now organize qualifying competitions and represent their countries within IYPT committees, with many receiving official recognition.

Tournament structure

The most important structural parts of the IYPT are the physics fights. There are five selective fights, and one final fight for the top teams at the end. The structure of these Fights can be compared to the group phase of a football competition (e.g. FIFA World Cup).

Each fight consists of 3 (or 4) stages. In each stage, every team in a given Fight room has one role of the following: reporter, opponent, reviewer, and observer (if there are 4 teams in a Fight). During the 3 (or 4) stages, they "rotate", so that every team has all the roles exactly once, represented by the following tables:

+ Three-teams Physics FightStage123 Team 1 Rep. Rev. Opp. Team 2 Opp. Rep. Rev. Team 3 Rev. Opp. Rep.

+ Four-teams Physics FightStage1234 Team 1 Rep. Obs. Rev. Opp. Team 2 Opp. Rep. Obs. Rev. Team 3 Rev. Opp. Rep. Obs. Team 4 Ops. Rev. Opp. Rep.

The following table represents the structure of a single Stage:

+ Stage regulationsEventDurationReporterOpponentReviewerJury The Opp. challenges the Rep. for the problem 1 min. active The Rep. accepts or rejects the challenge 1 min. active Preparation of the Rep. 4 min. Presentation of the report 12 min. active Short questions of the Opp. to the Rep. and answers of the Rep. 2 min. active active Preparation of the Opp. 3 min. Opp. presentation max. 4 min. active Discussion 10 min. + remaining time from the Opp. presentation active active Summary of the Discussion 1 min. active Questions of the Rev. to the Rep. and the Opp. and answers 3 min. active active active Preparation of the Rev. 2 min. Rev. presentation 5 min. active Concluding remarks 2 min. active Questions of the Jury 5 min. active active active active In the last Selective PF and in the Final PF the procedure of challenge is omitted.

Timeline table +YearNo.VenueHost countryNo. of teamsNo. of countriesGold winner(s)Silver winner(s) 1988 1st Moscow 31 3[Detailed history of IYPTs in 1988–1993 (preprint) http://ilyam.org/Draft_IM_Detailed_history_IYPT_1988-1993.pdf] Disputable Disputable 1989 2nd Moscow 8 7 , Bulgaria RSFSR-School 710, Moscow 1990 3rd Moscow 6 5 * RSFSR-School 542, Moscow Latvian SSR-Riga, 1991 4th Moscow 7 6 * , Soviet Combined team 1992 5th Protvino 12 10 , , 1993 6th Protvino 19 11 , 1994 7th Groningen 12 11 , 1995 8th Spała 15 12 , 1996 9th Tskaltubo 13 10 ,-2 1997 10th Cheb 15 11 , 1998 11th Donaueschingen 18 16 -1, 1999 12th Vienna 19 17 ,-1 2000 13th Budapest 17 16 -2 , 2001 14th Espoo 18 16 , 2002 15th Odesa 20 18 , 2003 16th Uppsala 23 22 , 2004 17th Brisbane 26 24 , 2005 18th Winterthur 25 23 , 2006 19th Bratislava 26 24 , 2007 20th Seoul 22 21 -2, 2008 21st Trogir 21 21 , 2009 22nd Tianjin 27 27 , 2010 23rd Vienna 23 23 ,,, ,,,, 2011 24th Tehran 21 21 ,, ,,,, 2012 25th Bad Saulgau 28 28 ,, ,,,, 2013 26th Taipei 26 26 ,, ,,,, 2014 27th Shrewsbury 28 28 ,,, ,,,, 2015 28th Nakhon Ratchasima 27 27 ,, ,,,, 2016 29th Ekaterinburg 29 29 ,,, ,,,, 2017 30th Singapore 30 30, ,,,,,, 2018 31st Beijing 32 32, ,,,,,, 2019 32nd Warsaw 36 36 ,,, ,,,,202033rdNot held due to COVID-19202134thKutaisi1515,,,,,,202235thTimișoara2525,,,,,,202336thMurree1414, , ,,,, 202437thBudapest 38 38 ,,, , , ,,202538thLund 35 35 ,,, ,,, , , 202639thZurich 35 35 ,,, ,,, , , 202740thAuckland TBD TBD TBD TBD

(*) the number of Nations can be disputed as some countries were midway towards a recognized independence

See also IYPT 2011

Footnotes

External links

Official IYPT 2019 website