Attila Szabó of Hungary was the top scorer in this year’s International Physics Olympiad, which was held in Estonia in July. The 378 high school competitors represented 80 countries; 45 participants from 21 countries won gold medals. The teams from China and Taiwan were the only ones to have all five members win gold.
The US team earned three gold medals and two silvers. Golds went to Eric Schneider and Kevin Zhou, who attend high school together in Lincroft, New Jersey, and Allan Sadun of Austin, Texas. Jeffrey Yan of Palo Alto, California, and Jeffrey Cai of Basking Ridge, New Jersey, took home silvers. Schneider also won a special prize for having the best solution to one of the theoretical problems. The US team was sponsored by the American Institute of Physics and its member societies, with the American Association of Physics Teachers hosting and coaching, and by the University...
