120 students from all over Thuringia were guests at the TU Ilmenau at the end of March to compete in the 32nd Thuringian Physics Olympiad. After successfully completing two preliminary rounds, the young people from grades 7 to 12 once again tackled tricky questions in the university's Röntgenbau building. One Ilmenau student even managed to solve all the tasks without making any mistakes.
The large number of special prizes that awaited the best young physicists at the 32nd Thuringian Physics Olympiad showed that not only correct but also particularly creative solutions count. But before being awarded, the students had to complete a written exam lasting several hours in the final round. Afterwards, the younger participants had the opportunity to listen to a lecture on the topic of planets by Prof. Siegfried Stapf, head of Technical Physics II. Meanwhile, the physics-loving youngsters from grades 10 to 12 were given a guided tour of the campus and the university's institutes and laboratories.
At the end, State Secretary Prof. Speitkamp honored the particularly successful participants, who had competed with like-minded people from all over Thuringia as well as guests from Saxony. According to the State Secretary, they had not only tackled particularly challenging tasks, but also important social issues. Luke Pospiech, grade 12 of the Goetheschule Ilmenau, was particularly successful: He not only won the special prize of the Thuringian universities for his particularly elegant solution to the quantum physics tasks, but also emerged as the winner of the State Olympiad for grade 12 with 40 out of a possible 40 points.
Since he was also very successful in the selection competition for the International Physics Olympiad, he now has the chance to qualify for the next round of the competition for the five-member national team that will compete for Germany at the 53rd International Physics Olympiad in Japan in July.
The Thuringian Physics Olympiad was launched in 1990 with the support of the Thuringian Ministry of Education and is sponsored by the German Physical Society, the Departent of Physics and Astronomy at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, the Thuringian Chamber of Engineers, Ernst Abbe University in Jena, the Institute of Physics at TU Ilmenau and other supporters such as the company BN Automation. They honored the special achievements of the young physicists with special prizes.
First prize winners of the final round of the 32nd Thuringian Physics Olympiad at TU Ilmenau
Grade 7 - Jan Magnus Müller - Goetheschule Ilmenau
Grade 8 - Nina Eckart - Carl-Zeiss-Gymnasium Jena
Grade 9 - David Malessa and Janina Leistritz - Goetheschule Ilmenau
Grade 10 - Florian Luc Heyne - Albert-Schweizer-Gymnasium Erfurt; Elia Weißenborn - Philipp-Melanchthon-Gymnasium Schmalkalden
Grade 11 - Maria Maternik - Salzmann School Schnepfenthal; Maximilian Kirchner - Goethe School Ilmenau
Grade 12 - Johannes Valk - Friedrich-Schiller-Gymnasium Weimar; Luke Pospiech - Goetheschule Ilmenau