Taiwan shines at International Physics Olympiad

2015/07/14

Taiwan students bagged four golds and one silver at the 46th International Physics Olympiad, continuing the country’s run of top-three finishes for the fifth year at the annual competition.

Cheng Chung-yao from Kaohsiung Municipal Senior High School, Lin Yu-chia from National Taichung First Senior High School, as well as Tsai Pei-kai and Tsao Yi-lin from Taipei Municipal Jianguo High School, all earned gold. Yang Chih-hsiang, also from the Taipei school, won the silver.

Cheng’s seventh place among 382 participants from 82 countries and territories helped Taiwan finish even with Russia, South Korea and the U.S., trailing only mainland China with five golds, at the July 5-12 event in Mumbai, India.

“I was very lucky because the more difficult questions in the test involved experiments, which happened to be the subject that I am good at,” Cheng said.

“My father encouraged me to teach myself science from a young age,” he said, adding that even though he is a first-grader, he has completed the curriculum for high school physics.

Chia Chih-ta, team advisor and physics professor at National Taiwan Normal University, said he was extremely pleased with the students at the global competition given their limited preparation time. “The team’s performance was especially commendable since it comprises two first-graders, two second-graders and only one senior student, whereas most other teams comprised mostly seniors.”

The five-member team was selected from the eight winners of a national competition attracting 3,174 participants earlier this year. In May, a squad made up of the eight national winners bagged three golds and five silvers at the Asian Physics Olympiad in mainland China.

IPhO is an annual competition for high school students first held in Warsaw in 1967. Since debuting in 1994, Taiwan has collected 59 gold, 22 silver and 18 bronze medals, as well as eight honorary awards.

Source: Taiwan Today (http://taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=232484&ctNode=413)