At a time when the Higgs boson, graphene, and atom trapping are often in the headlines, this partnership finds fertile ground for its goal of spreading awareness of physics and physics education across the country.
Physics students are traditionally taught to break down a complicated system into manageable pieces, to identify the physical laws or principles guiding each piece, and to describe the resulting behavior of the complete system. This approach is rigorous enough to yield precise quantitative results, yet flexible enough to apply to new and unexpected systems or problems. Cutting-edge physics research pushes the boundaries of the known physical laws, testing them with high precision and motivating new theories. Only a fraction of physics students will spend their careers in a research laboratory, but nearly all will put their skills to use in science- or tech-related fields.
Supporters often point to the development of new technologies as a return on investment in the physical sciences. Indeed, such examples from physics research surround us every day: electron accelerators that make plastic film stretchier and meat safer, magnetic resonance imagers that reveal the body's internal structure, and the World-Wide Web that facilitates the exchange of scientific papers and world news.
An even more important benefit is a cohort of STEM students trained in rigorous scientific thinking and the latest technology. For example, physics students apply their talents in calculating correct proton beam doses for cancer therapy, crunching big data for market analytics, tracking gestures for computer input devices, and modeling network and traffic patterns. While only a few of these professionals have the word "physicist" in their job title, they are all using their physics training and the problem-solving skills honed on countless challenging exercises.
Events like the International Physics Olympiad represent a concentrated version of those challenges. With the top high school physics students matching wits, the Olympiad is a showcase for academic excellence and the international nature of science. Perhaps more importantly, it draws attention to the even larger group of students who enjoy challenging themselves every day in their physics courses and in the Fnet=ma preliminary competitions. Support for programs such as the U.S. Physics Team is designed to promote the competitions as well as physics education in general. With increasing support for STEM education, including physics, we can look forward to an increasing number of graduates putting their physical science skills into practice.
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Jason Nielsen attended the Research Science Institute in 1989 and is currently Associate Professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He works with students on research in experimental particle physics, including studies of the Higgs boson and the development of new instruments for particle detection.