The International Young Physicists' Tournament (IYPT)[1], sometimes referred to as the “Physics World Cup”, is a scientific competition between teams of secondary school students. It mimics, as close as possible, the real-world scientific research and the process of presenting and defending the results obtained.

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 Reporter, Opponent and Reviewer, thus 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 150 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".

Tournament structure

The most important structural parts of the IYPT are the Physics Fights. There are 5 Selective Fights, and one Final Fight for the top teams at the end. The sturcture 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 Fight
Stage 1 2 3
Team 1 Rep. Rev. Opp.
Team 2 Opp. Rep. Rev.
Team 3 Rev. Opp. Rep.
Four-teams Physics Fight
Stage 1 2 3 4
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 regulations
Event Duration Reporter Opponent Reviewer Jury
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. 5 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 4 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

Year No. Venue Host country No. of teams No. of countries Gold winner(s) Silver winner(s)
1988 1st Moscow  Soviet Union 31 3[2] Disputable[2] Disputable[2]
1989 2nd Moscow  Soviet Union 8 7  West Germany,
Bulgaria Bulgaria		 Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic RSFSR-School 710, Moscow[2]
1990 3rd Moscow  Soviet Union 6[2] 5 *[2] Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic RSFSR-School 542, Moscow[2] Latvia Latvian SSR-Riga,
 Netherlands[2]
1991 4th Moscow  Soviet Union 7[2] 6 *[2]  Hungary[2]  Poland,
Soviet Union Soviet Combined team[2]
1992 5th Protvino  Russia 12 10  Belarus,
 Czechoslovakia[2]		  Netherlands,
 Russia[2]
1993 6th Protvino  Russia 19 11  Georgia  Ukraine,
 Hungary[2]
1994 7th Groningen  Netherlands 12 11  Czech Republic,
 Russia		  Georgia
1995 8th Spała  Poland 15 12  Germany  Czech Republic,
 Hungary
1996 9th Tskhaltubo  Georgia 13 10  Czech Republic  Germany,
 Georgia-2
1997 10th Cheb  Czech Republic 15 11  Hungary,
 Czech Republic		  Belarus
1998 11th Donaueschingen  Germany 18 16  Czech Republic  Germany-1,
 Poland
1999 12th Vienna  Austria 19 17  Germany  Georgia,
 Austria-1
2000 13th Budapest  Hungary 17 16  Poland-2  Germany,
 Russia
2001 14th Espoo  Finland 18 16  Slovakia  Australia,
 Germany
2002 15th Odesa  Ukraine 20 18  Poland  Belarus,
 Germany
2003 16th Uppsala  Sweden 23 22  Germany  South Korea,
 Poland
2004 17th Brisbane  Australia 26 24  Poland  Germany,
 Slovakia
2005 18th Winterthur   Switzerland 25 23  Germany  Belarus,
 United States
2006 19th Bratislava  Slovakia 26 24  Croatia  South Korea,
 Germany
2007 20th Seoul  South Korea 22 21  Australia  South Korea-2,
 New Zealand
2008 21st Trogir  Croatia 21 21  Germany  Croatia,
 New Zealand
2009 22nd Tianjin  China 27 27  South Korea  Austria,
 New Zealand
2010 23rd Vienna  Austria 23 23  Singapore,
 Austria,
 New Zealand,
 South Korea		  Germany,
 Chinese Taipei,
 Iran,
 Australia,
 Slovakia
2011 24th Tehran  Iran 21 21  South Korea,
 Austria,
 Germany		  Chinese Taipei,
 Iran,
 Slovakia,
 Singapore,
 Belarus
2012 25th Bad Saulgau  Germany 28 28  South Korea,
 Iran,
 Singapore		  Belarus,
 Germany,
 Chinese Taipei,
  Switzerland,
 Austria
2013 26th Taipei  Chinese Taipei 26 26  Singapore,
 South Korea,
  Switzerland		  Poland,
 New Zealand,
 Slovakia,
 Sweden,
 Brazil
2014 27th Shrewsbury  United Kingdom 28 28  Singapore,
 Slovakia,
 Poland,
 China		  South Korea,
 New Zealand,
 Chinese Taipei,
 Russia,
 Germany
2015 28th Nakhon Ratchasima  Thailand 27 27  Singapore,
 Poland,
 China		  Slovakia,
 Brazil,
 Bulgaria,
 Russia,
 South Korea
2016 29th Ekaterinburg  Russia 29 29  Singapore,
 Germany,
  Switzerland,
 Chinese Taipei		  South Korea,
 Slovakia,
 New Zealand,
 China,
 Hungary
2017 30th Singapore  Singapore 30 30  Singapore,

 China,
 Poland,
 Hungary

  New Zealand,

 Germany,

 Chinese Taipei,

 Brazil,

 Czech Republic

2018 31st Beijing  China 32 32  Singapore,

 China,
 Germany,
 Korea

  Brazil,

 Sweden,

 Slovakia,

 Poland,

 Ukraine

2019 32nd Warsaw  Poland 36 36  Singapore,
 Germany,
  Switzerland,
 China		  Korea,
 Brazil,
 Ukraine,
 New Zealand,
 Sweden
2020 33rd Not held due to COVID-19
2021 34th Kutaisi  Georgia 15 15  Poland,
 Slovakia,
 Austria		  Ukraine,
 Hungary,
 Georgia,
  Switzerland,
 Russia
2022 35th Timișoara  Romania 25 25   Switzerland,
 Singapore,
 Poland		  Chinese Taipei,
 Ukraine,
 Germany,
 Czech Republic,
 Hungary
2023 36th Murree  Pakistan 14 14  Poland,
 Thailand,
 Slovakia		  China,  Ukraine,  Czech Republic,  Hungary,  Brazil
2024 37th Budapest  Hungary - - - -

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

See also

Footnotes

  1. ↑ "Official IYPT Website". IYPT.org. Retrieved 2021-09-15.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 [Detailed history of IYPTs in 1988–1993 (preprint) http://ilyam.org/Draft_IM_Detailed_history_IYPT_1988-1993.pdf]
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