Preliminary Round 2012: Results

The preliminary round of the Swiss Physics Olympiad 2012 took place on Saturday, 21 January 2012. 58 students from all around Switzerland and Liechtenstein participated at at one of the four different venues: Zurich, Lausanne and Lugano.

The following 24 participants qualified for the SwissPhO 2012:

  1. Lê Thanh Phong
  2. Käser Sebastian
  3. Schwarz Dominic
  4. Francfort Jérémie
  5. Gnap Stan
  6. Mordig Maximilian
  7. Py Valentin
  8. Schildknecht Christoph
  9. Erhart Luca
  10. Zuidema Christoph
  11. Inglin Raphael
  12. Loris Michel
  13. Zurbuchen Yves
  14. Wenger Quentin
  15. Kaufmann Tim
  16. Kehl Viviane
  17. Gremion Laura
  18. Roy Valentin
  19. Dermelj James
  20. Giron Tristan
  21. Komagata Kenichi
  22. Koller Levin
  23. Blaser Daniel
  24. Kreis Carla

Congratulations to those who qualified and good luck at the SwissPhO! The SwissPhO is going to take place on 21/22 April at the Neue Kantonsschule in Aarau. The top five will get the great opportunity to represent Switzerland at the International Physics Olympiad 2012 in Tallinn, Estonia in July.

We thank all other students for their participation and hope to see them at next year's SwissPhO.

The complete ranking with including scores is available here.

Pictures from the different venues:

Zurich (ETH):


Lausanne (EPFL):

© Images: Simon Birrer, Markus Meier, Roland Diggelmann

SwissPhO 2012

The International Physics Olympiad IPhO 2012 is going to take place between 15 July and 24 July in Estonia. The leaders will be accommodated in Tallinn while the participants will be staying in Tartu, home to the oldest university of Estonia.

We would like to use this opportunity to thank Alfredo Mastrocola for his involvement in the SwissPhO over many years. We congratulate to the well-deserved prize which he was awarded by the VSWO at the 7th Swiss Scientific Olympiads Day 2011 for his long-standing commitment.
Alfredo passed on his positions of Coordinator and Treasurer this year with Simon Birrer taking over as Coordinator; Matthias Treier is Alfredo's successor as Treasurer. We are very grateful that we will still be able to benefit from Alfredo's invaluable advice and hands-on support.

We would further like to express our gratitude to Harald Sprenger. His service as Secretary has been of great value. He is passing on his position to Simon Birrer for professional reasons.


Alfredo Mastrocola
Alfredo Mastrocola

© Image: Hannes Suter, VSWO

IPhO 2011– Harmony in Physics

Bangkok – The capital city of Thailand hosted the 42. International Physics Olympiads 2011 (IPhO) under the slogan Harmony in Physics, which took place from July 10th to 18th. The royal Thai family and the Chulalongkorn University of Bangkok entertained 84 countries with excursions all over the capital, and with cultural shows.

During the theoretical test students had to solve three exercises covering classical physics topics, such as the gravitational laws governing the three-body problem, the thermodynamics describing the behavior of soap bubbles, and the electrodynamics which was used to describe scattering processes between atoms and ions.

During the five hours of experimental examination the contestants were asked to reverse engineer a digital caliber, and to solve a mechanics experiment, with the goal of finding the position and the mass of a small sphere inside a cylinder.

This year Switzerland has been represented by these five contestants (from left to right):

  • Sebastian Käser,
    from Gurzelen (Gymn. Thun Schadau, BE)
  • Dominic Schwarz,
    from Teufen (Kantonschule Trogen, AR)
  • Jean-François Pinazza,
    from Lonay (Gymnase de Morges, VD)
  • Thanh Phong Lê,
    from Crissier (Gymnase du Bugnon, site de Sévelin, VD)
  • Sylvain Hauser,
    from Moutier (Gymn. français Bienne, BE)

Congratulations to Jean-François Pinazza for his bronze medal, and to Dominic Schwarz and Thanh Phong Lê for earning each an honorable mention.

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