Oxford team take third in theoretical physics comp

A team of four physics undergraduate students – three of whom from the University of Oxford and one from Imperial College London – came third in the international finals of PLANCKS. The team, I Carnot, were up against 53 other teams from 28 countries in the theoretical physics competition final; the top spots were hotly contested with less than 2% between the results of the top three teams.

Team members Robin Wopalenski, Kiefer Lim Yi Heng and Parkin Pham (who was a substitute for Zeyuan Luo) were all from the University of Oxford while Tejas Penugonda was from Imperial College London.

I Carnot, had placed second in the UK and Ireland preliminaries in February and were joined in Eindhoven for the finals by fellow University of Oxford team ‘TeamName’ who had taken the top spot in the preliminaries.

The team confirmed: ‘We really enjoyed exploring Eindhoven, meeting fellow physicists from across the globe and solving fun physics challenges at the PLANCKS competition.’

‘It is always fantastic to see our students put themselves forward in this way – and to medal as well is an extraordinary achievement,’ comments Professor Andrew Boothroyd, head of the Department of Physics. ‘Enormous congratulations not only to the I Carnot team but also to the other Oxford undergraduates who took part and did themselves proud.’