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, Medalists Alex Reiff ’12, Cathy Chen ’12,
Qingyang Xu ’13 and Quang Bui ’13 with
Physics Team advisers Chris Ritacco and Jim
Mooney. Courtesy of Cathy Chen
around the Pond
By Debra Meyers
Physics Is Fun
Taft Wins Physics Olympics at Yale
Four Taft students competed in the
annual Physics Olympics at Yale
University in the fall; Team Taft completed
the pentathlon with the highest
combined overall score, earning top
honors at the prestigious event.
Taft was one of nearly 50 schools to
compete in the 2011 Physics Olympics.
Now in its 13th year, the contest is
sponsored by the Physics Department
at Yale University. Quang Bui ’13, Cathy
Chen ’12, Alex Reiff ’12 and Qingyang
Xu ’13 earned Taft’s win by besting the
competition in a series of five 35-minute
events. Each event is a task or simple experiment
performed as a team, designed
to obtain a result or measurement. The
teams are ordered based on the accuracy
of their results; prizes are awarded to the
first-, second- and third-place teams in
each event and overall.
Taft placed first in “That Sinking
Feeling,” where teams built duct tape
boats that could stay afloat when loaded
with sand. Competitors could use no
more than two meters of duct tape; the
winning boat would stay afloat while carrying
the greatest volume of sand. Taft’s
value of 1.38 kg was 10 percent greater
than the second place team.
“The competition was a testament to
the efficiency of collaborative brainpower
and teamwork,” explains Cathy Chen,
“and the boat challenge was a perfect
example of that: Alex came up with the
idea of turning the duct tape inside out
to gain sturdier friction so as to prevent
the boat from sinking; I recommended
securing the four corners to stabilize
our ship, and Quang and Qingyang took
measurements. We all relied on each
other’s physics insight and we put our
hands together to build the ship.”
Team Taft placed second in the
Fermi quiz, where teams make order
of magnitude estimates (including a
practical calculation of just how many
pingpong balls will fit inside a 747 jet),
and third in the “Frequency Asked
Question” event, where teams measured
the difference in pitch between two
nearly identical tuning forks.
Taft was the only team to place in
three events, which earned them the
highest overall score for the day.
Their medals and trophy are on display
in Wu 120.
10 Taft Bulletin Winter 2012