Marksmen Advance in Physics Olympiad

Surya Dinesh ’25 and Matthew Fan ’22 reached the semifinals of the U.S. Physics Olympiad, two of only about 350 students nationwide to do so.  

 
“Having two students from St. Mark’s advance to the semifinals when only 350 advance nationwide certainly demonstrates the caliber of students here,” said Wesley Irons, Physics Teacher. “The educators and facilities at St. Mark’s are unparalleled and contribute both to attracting such strong students and helping develop them into future leaders.” 

 

Surya has only taken introductory physics classes at St. Mark’s so far and has largely learned the rest independently. “One very important lesson I learned is that hard work will pay off in the long run,” Surya said. “I was nervous all the way up until the day of the competition because I thought I would not do very well, but it turned out that my work throughout last year and this one has paid off tremendously.” 

Matthew was first drawn to physics in his eighth-grade physics class. “I was intrigued by the puzzle-like nature of the problems, which propelled me to further explore the world of physics through reading articles and watching videos online. The most fascinating part of physics for me was witnessing real-life application come from the concepts presented in textbooks,” Matthew said. 

To reach this stage of the competition, Surya and Matthew had to score among the top students on the “F=ma Exam,” which included physics problems like: “A train travels at 360 km/hr on a slightly sinusoidal track, with a vertical amplitude of h over a 1 km distance. If the maximum tolerable vertical acceleration of the train is set at 0.1 m/s2, what is the maximum allowable size of h?” 

Later in April, Surya and Matthew will compete in the finals, which feature more difficult questions from a wide range of physics topics, including thermodynamics, relativity, and atomic physics. From there, the top finalists will move on to a rigorous national training camp, where the top five students are selected to represent the United States.  

 

The United States Physics Olympiad is a high school physics competition run by the American Association of Physics Teachers and the American Institute of Physics to select the team to represent the United States at the International Physics Olympiad.