2010 U.S. Physics Team Welcomed to Camp

College Park, MD, May 24, 2010—They came from Iowa and Ohio, Oregon and Massachusetts. Five came from California, two from New Jersey, and one from Connecticut. Students from the Northeast, the Mid-Atlantic, the Midwest, the Southwest, and the Pacific coast are beginning ten days of rigorous academic training, interactive learning, and friendship building as they prepare to test themselves on the world stage.

They are the top twenty high school physics students in the United States, selected through an examination process that included such upper level skills as the Lagrangian Formula of Mechanics, Differential Calculus for Electricity and Magnetism, and Complex Variables, skills usually learned at the end of the undergraduate experience.

They were welcomed to the University of Maryland, College Park campus by AAPT Executive Officer, Warren Hein and AIP Executive Director, Fred Dylla. Officers and staff from AAPT, AIP, APS, and the University of Maryland were on hand for the camp kick off.

Meet the U.S. Physics team at http://www.aapt.org/physicsteam/2010/team.cfm. Get to know their coaches, Paul Stanley, Academic Director; Warren Turner, Senior Lab Coach; Qui Zi Li, Assistant Lab Coach; and Academic Coaches, Jia Jia Dong, David Fallest, and Andrew Linn at http://www.aapt.org/physicsteam/2010/coaches.cfm.

In addition to learning a year of physics in two weeks, the team members will visit their congressional representatives on Capitol Hill, tour the National Air and Space Museum, and visit the Albert Einstein statue at the National Academy of Science. At the end of the camp, they will be tested again and five of the team members will be selected to travel to Zagreb, Croatia, representing the United States in the International Physics Olympiad, July 17 – 25, 2010.