Undergraduate physics competitions

[Caravan]

At the high school level, there is the Physics Olympiad exam.

At the undergraduate level, there is the Putnam exam.

Are there any Olympiad-type, undergraduate physics competitions out there? Like the Putnam, except for physics?

 

[eri]

Not that I'm aware of. At this point, it's not a matter of just memorizing facts. Now you're expected to be thinking about doing something original, and many undergraduates do manage to work on original research with a professor. Your goal now should be 'real' physics, not physics as a game - try getting an internship or working in a lab. Some conferences give awards to undergrad researchers who do a good job, and you can try applying for scholarships and grants for graduate school.

 

[Hioj]

This is the only one that I know of: https://ortvay.secureweb.elte.hu/" . Some big company should do something about that though, and start arranging some undergraduate competitions. It's not like they can't make hard enough undergrad problems, just like the IPhO has tough questions for high school pupils, there should be a competition with hard problems for undergrad students.

Competitions provide such a thrill. People with a competitive mentality end up studying hard for such competitions. They learn faster and become better physicists for it. There's no way getting around solving problems as a physicist, and the more you hone your skill, the better you become. Doing 'real' physics certainly does not exclude 'playing physics games', especially when you learn something useful from it.

 

[Caravan]

Not that I'm aware of. At this point, it's not a matter of just memorizing facts. Now you're expected to be thinking about doing something original, and many undergraduates do manage to work on original research with a professor. Your goal now should be 'real' physics, not physics as a game - try getting an internship or working in a lab. Some conferences give awards to undergrad researchers who do a good job, and you can try applying for scholarships and grants for graduate school.

I see what you are saying, but why does the Putnam exist, then? Why is it so popular, if it's just a mathematics game? Don't the high scorers go on to be some of the most productive physicists and mathematicians?

 

[Disinterred]

In Canada, they do have an undergraduate contest called the "CAP prize exam".

 

[snipez90]

I see what you are saying, but why does the Putnam exist, then? Why is it so popular, if it's just a mathematics game? Don't the high scorers go on to be some of the most productive physicists and mathematicians?

I think the putnam did start as a more or less friendly competition between Harvard and West Point or something. You seem surprised by the fact that many contestants do treat it as a game. The Putnam is less about learning undergraduate mathematics deeply and more about building exceptional problem solving skills at the undergraduate level.

Often the problems use basic facts in the nicest way possible. For instance, the recent competition had a difficult PDE problem. But the PDE given was essentially something like the transport equation, which is one of the simplest linear PDEs. The dea behind the transport equation is that a particular directional derivative of a sufficiently smooth function vanishes. So if you had not studied PDEs, you had to rely on problem solving experience from multivariable calculus. At some point you also had to know the most basic differential equation: f' = f to proceed. There is certainly nothing theoretically deep going on here, but if you're not experienced at solving hard problems, it's hard to make progress.