The Physics Olympiad participants in Dubna

Jul. 15th, 2019 - Jul. 15th, 2019

The Physics Olympiad (PhO) is a prestigious competition with long tradition in the Czech Republic, this year marking its 60th anniversary. IEAP decided to support the best contestants and organized a study stay for them in JINR in Dubna.

Students in the highest A category competed progressively in three rounds of PhO. This year’s topic is from authors V. Wagner, V. Vicha and Z. Janout: The boundaries of Mendeleyev’s table, or how to produce and explore ever heavier elements (“Hranice Mendělejevovy tabulky aneb jak produkovat a zkoumat stále těžší prvky”). This study text was created in 2018 on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Mendeleev's periodic table from the initiative of the IEAP. In each round the students dealt with problems in the topics of particle accelerators and nuclear reactions. The assignment’s names were Cyclotron, Super-heavy nuclei decay, Particle collisions and Production of hassium.

The winners of the regional and national rounds were then offered, by the director of IEAP, a one week stay in JINR. Altogether 17 Olympians went to Dubna, among them were students Viktor Fukala, Jindrich Jelinek and Michal Jires, who were nominated for the international Physics Olympiad this year. There were also 5 high school teachers, who have their interests set in the PhO and, for many years, work with the talented students.

A rich program of lectures, excursions as well as laboratory measurements was prepared for students. They tried to measure cosmic muons, detection of gamma and alpha particles. Considerably the greatest experience for the students happened while on a field trip to the new cyclotron DC-280 they were visited by prof. Oganesjan, after whom the (so far) heaviest element of Mendeley table has been named, the 118th element Oganesson. Inside the Accelerator Hall he spoke of production of super heavy elements that students knew from the study text.

On the initiative of the IEAP, the study text was translated into English (The Boundaries of the Mendeleev periodic table) and printed. The text was then provided to Dubna, so that it could serve for education of students here.

The fact that there were top physics talents from the year graduates testifies that those who have already graduated will enroll in prestigious physics and technical schools in Czech Republic and two of them will go to Cambridge University. IEAP is considering cooperation with the PhO, so that maybe next year the physics Olympians will once again visit JINR.

Vladimir Vicha

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