Physics Cup – TalTech 2021

Final results


Problem 1 – Dumbbell in a magnetic field

Problem 2 – Comet’s orbit

Problem 3 – Oscillating octagon

Problem 4 – Shock wave in an electron gas

Problem 5 – Nonlinear circular resonator


The competition started on December 27th, 2020, at 1 pm (GMT).

If you cannot access the registration link due to country-specific restrictions, please send your registration data (full name, date of birth, e-mail address, country, school or university, age group (university/pre-university) physics teacher (if pre-university) by email to physcs.cup@gmail.com.

The competition is sponsored by TalTech — Tallinn University of Technology. There is also a budget for awards.

Distribution of problems.

The first problem of Physics Cup – 2020 was published at 1 pm (GMT), 27th December 2020. At 1 pm (GMT) of the last Sunday of each month, between December 2019 and April 2020, a new problem is published at https://physicscup.ee. The problems will be sent by e-mail to all the registered participants, too, but I cannot guarantee to send e-mails exactly at 1 pm GMT. Therefore, if you wish to access the problems as soon as possible, please read them online at physicscup.ee. I’ll send, however, the e-mail with each new problem and with each new hint as soon as I can.

You will be informed if your solution submitted within the previous week was correct or not at 1 pm each Sunday (registered participants will receive an e-mail with a non-public link to a page where all the results are listed).

Also, at 1 pm each Sunday, a new hint regarding the active problem is published at https://physicscup.ee. Keep in mind that with each new hint, the base score for correct solutions is decreased by 0.1 pts (for more details, cf. https://physicscup.ee/participate/).

The final deadline for submitting solutions for the N-th problem is usually when the N+1st problem is published. However, depending on the number of correct solutions, the deadline may be extended by one or two weeks.

About the results of Physics Cup TalTech 2020.

I am very sorry about the long delay with the results of Physics Cup TalTech 2020 – the final results are still not out. The main reason behind this delay is that the COVID-19 disrupted my plans. As a result, I was unable to select the best papers for each problem in time. I can promise that (a) the best papers for the Physics Cup 2021 will be announced within two weeks from the last submission deadline for each of the problems; (b) the final results of the Physics Cup 2020, together with all the best solutions, will be announced during January 2021. – Jaan Kalda

Call for problems. Please send me any problem which you believe would be suitable for Physics Cup (use my personal email – my_surname@ioc.ee – JK)!