Asian Physics Olympiad

The Asian Physics Olympiad (APhO) is an annual physics competition for high school students from Asia and Oceania regions. It is one of the International Science Olympiads. It was initiated in the year 2000 by Indonesia.[1] The first APhO was hosted by Indonesia in 2000.

APhO has its origins in the International Physics Olympiad and is conducted according to similar statutes (One five-hour theoretical examination and one or two laboratory examinations). It is usually held about two months before the IPhO and can also be seen as additional training for the teams.[2]

Each national delegation is made up of eight competitors (unlike five in the IPhO) plus two leaders. Observers may also accompany a national team. The leaders are involved in the selection, preparation and translation of the exam tasks, and the translation and marking of exam papers. The students compete as individuals, and must sit through intensive theoretical and laboratory examinations. For their efforts the students can be awarded a medal (gold, silver or bronze) or an honorable mention.

History

In 1999, the team leader of Indonesia, Prof. Yohanes Surya, Ph.D., together with the president of IPhO, Prof.Waldemar Gorzkowski, undertook to create and organize the first APhO, which was held in Indonesia, between April 24 and May 2, 2000. At this time, prof. Gorzkowski was also working in Indonesia to help with the IPhO team. The event attracted participants from 12 Asian countries. It now is attended by up to 27 countries.[3]

Actively participating countries include Australia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macau, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Thailand, and Vietnam. Romania has participated in guest teams[3] in the past years.

Differences between APhO and IPhO

APhO has 8 students in each delegation, while IPhO has 5.

The award system

In 2001, the IPhO International Board accepted a new system of awarding the prizes.[4] The new system, designed by Cyril Isenberg and Dr. Gunter Lind was based on a relative number of contestants for each type of award, instead of the score boundaries defined by percentage of the best contestant's score.

This was not acceptable for APhO, because the average level of contestants is different. The old system remained in power for APhO since the beginning up to 9th APhO in Mongolia, where the leaders voted for replacing it by a new award system suggested by Dr. Eli Raz from the Israeli delegation. The new system, sometimes unofficially referred to as the Israeli Award System, is based on a reference score that is the lowest between twice the median score and the mean score of the top 3 participants.[5] It was first used on 10th APhO in Thailand Archived 2009-09-03 at the Wayback Machine.

Summary

Information on previous years[6][7] of the APhO:

Number
 Year
 City
 Country
 Date
Teams
Absolute Winner Score Cutoffs (G/S/B/HM)
1 2000 Tangerang  Indonesia April 23 - May 2, 2000 10 Song Junliang (China) 44.75/50 38/33/27/21
2 2001 Taipei  Chinese Taipei April 22 - May 1, 2001 12 Tsai Hsin-Yu (Chinese Taipei) 34.50/50 28/25/20/16
3 2002 Singapore  Singapore May 6–14, 2002 15 Gu Chun Hui (China) 35/?/25/?
4 2003 Bangkok  Thailand April 20–29, 2003 10 Pawit Sangchant (Thailand) 45.90/50 40/34/29/22
5 2004 Hanoi  Vietnam April 26 - May 4, 2004 13 Lang Ruitian (China) 45.10/50 39/34/28/22
6 2005 Pekanbaru  Indonesia April 24 - May 2, 2005 17 Li Fang (China) 45.60/50 40/35/29/22
7 2006 Almaty  Kazakhstan April 22–30, 2006 18 Zhu Li (China) 44.30/50 39/34/28/21
8 2007 Shanghai  China April 21–29, 2007 22 Yun Yang (China) 43.30/50 38/33/28/21
9 2008 Ulaanbaatar  Mongolia April 20–28, 2008 18 Ji He (China) 42.70/50 37/32/27/20
10 2009 Bangkok  Thailand April 24 - May 2, 2009 15 Lei Jin (China) 47.50/50 42/36/30/23
11 2010 Taipei  Chinese Taipei April 23 - May 1, 2010 16 Wang Szu-Pong (Chinese Taipei) 43.80/50 32/28/23/18
12 2011 Tel Aviv  Israel May 1–9, 2011 16 Wu Yukai (China) 42.60/50 31/27/22/17
13 2012 New Delhi  India April 30 - May 7, 2012 21 Yao Wenjie (China) 43.60/50 35/31/25/19
14 2013 Bogor  Indonesia May 5–13, 2013 20 Himawan Wicaksono Winarto (Indonesia) 35.90/50 24/20/17/13
15 2014 Singapore  Singapore May 11–19, 2014 27 Sun Yudong (China) 45.50/50 40/34/29/22
16 2015 Hangzhou  China May 3–11, 2015 25 Zhao Jinchao (China) 45.50/50 30/26/21/16
17 2016 Hong Kong  Hong Kong May 1–9, 2016 27 Zhang Tiancheng (China) ?.?/50 38/33/28/21
18 2017 Yakutsk  Russia May 1–9, 2017 24 Zhu Yaozheng (China) 44.45/50 26/23/19/14
19 2018 Hanoi  Vietnam May 5–15, 2018 25 Chen Tianyang (China) 39.07/50 ?/?/?/?
20 2019 Adelaide  Australia May 5–13, 2019 23 Grigorii Bobkov (Russia) 33.40/50 28/25/20/16
2020 Not held due to the COVID-19 pandemic[8]
21 2021 Taipei (online)  Chinese Taipei May 17–24, 2021 26 Manh Quan Nguyen (Vietnam) 33.85/50 22/19/16/12
22 2022 Dehradun (online)  India May 21–31, 2022 27 Fredy Yip (Australia) 47.60/50 42/36/30/23
23 2023 Ulaanbaatar  Mongolia May 22–30, 2023 24 Lang Chengchao (China) 33.50/50 19/16/13/10
24 2024 Kampar  Malaysia June 3-10, 2024 28 Qian Kunxiao (China) 43.20/50 37/35/30/24
25 2025 Dhahran  Saudi Arabia May 4-12, 2025
26 2026  South Korea
27 2027  Thailand

See also

References

  1. ^ "APhO -Home". asianphysicsolympiad.org.
  2. ^ APhO history
  3. ^ a b "Statistics of Participant Countries of APhO" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 July 2018. Retrieved 29 July 2018.
  4. ^ "Minutes of the Meetings of the International Board during the XXXII International Physics Olympiad in Antalya (Turkey) June 28 – July 6, 2001". Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved May 4, 2009.
  5. ^ "Statutes of the Asian Physics Olympiad". Archived from the original on 26 July 2018. Retrieved 29 July 2018.
  6. ^ "APhO - Past and Future Organizers". Archived from the original on 20 December 2016. Retrieved 14 December 2016.
  7. ^ "APhO -Minutes". asianphysicsolympiad.org. Retrieved 2023-04-14.
  8. ^ "APHO 2020". Retrieved 2020-03-31.[permanent dead link‍]