Asian Physics Olympiad

The Asian Physics Olympiad (APhO) is an annual physics competition for high school students from Asia and Oceania regions. It is one of the International Science Olympiads. The first APhO was hosted by Indonesia in 2000. The next Asian Physics Olympiad (2019) will be held in Australia.

APhO has its origins in the International Physics Olympiad and is conducted according to similar statutes (One five-hour theoretical examination and one or two laboratory examinations). It is usually held about two months before the IPhO and can also be seen as additional training for the teams.

Each national delegation is made up of eight competitors (unlike five in the IPhO) plus two leaders. Observers may also accompany a national team. The leaders are involved in the selection, preparation and translation of the exam tasks, and the translation and marking of exam papers. The students compete as individuals, and must sit through intensive theoretical and laboratory examinations. For their efforts the students can be awarded a medal (gold, silver or bronze) or an honorable mention.

History

In 1999, the team leader of Indonesia, Prof. Yohanes Surya, Ph.D., together with the president of IPhO, Prof.Waldemar Gorzkowski, undertook to create and organize the first APhO, which was held in Indonesia, between April 24 and May 2, 2000. At this time, prof. Gorzkowski was also working in Indonesia to help with the IPhO team. The event attracted participants from 12 Asian countries. It now is attended by up to 27 countries.

Actively participating countries include Australia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, China Hong Kong SAR, India, Indonesia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macau, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Thailand, and Vietnam. Russia and Romania have participated as guest teams in the past years.

Differences between APhO and IPhO

APhO has 8 students in each delegation, while IPhO has 5.

The award system

In 2001, the IPhO International Board accepted a new system of awarding the prizes. The new system, designed by Cyril Isenberg and Dr. Gunter Lind was based on relative number of contestants for each type of award, instead of the score boundaries defined by percentage of the best contestant's score.

This was not acceptable for APhO, because the average level of contestants is different. The old system remained in power for APhO since the beginning up to 9th APhO in Mongolia, where the leaders voted for replacing it by a new award system suggested by Dr. Eli Raz from the Israeli delegation. The new system, sometimes unofficially referred to as the Israeli Award System, is based on a reference score that is the lowest between twice the median score and the mean score of the top 3 participants. It was first used on 10th APhO in Thailand.

Summary 

Dates and locations of the APhO:

Number	Year	City	Country	Date	Countries
1	2000	Karawaci	Indonesia	April 23 - May 2, 2000	10
2	2001	Taipei	Chinese Taipei	April 22 - May 1, 2001	12
3	2002	Singapore	Singapore	May 6 - 14, 2002	15
4	2003	Bangkok	Thailand	April 20 - 29, 2003	10
5	2004	Hanoi	Vietnam	April 26 - May 4, 2004	13
6	2005	Pekanbaru	Indonesia	April 24 - May 2, 2005	17
7	2006	Almaty	Kazakhstan	April 22 - 30, 2006	18
8	2007	Shanghai	China	April 21 - 29, 2007	22
9	2008	Ulaanbaatar	Mongolia	April 20 - 28, 2008	18
10	2009	Bangkok	Thailand	April 24 - May 2, 2009	15
11	2010	Taipei	Chinese Taipei	April 23 - May 1, 2010	16
12	2011	Tel Aviv	Israel	May 1 - 9, 2011	16
13	2012	New Delhi	India	April 30 - May 7, 2012	21
14	2013	Bogor	Indonesia	May 5 - 13, 2013	20
15	2014	Singapore	Singapore	May 11 - 19, 2014	27
16	2015	Hangzhou	China	May 3 - 11, 2015	25
17	2016	Hong Kong	Hong Kong	May 1 - 9, 2016	27
18	2017	Yakutsk	Russia	May 1 - 9, 2017	24
19	2018	Hanoi	Vietnam	May 5 - 15, 2018	25
20	2019	Adelaide	Australia	May 5 - 13, 2019	23
21	2020	Taipei	Chinese Taipei	May 10 - 18, 2020