Institute of Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences (Warsaw - Poland), announces

The Twenty-First International Competition

FIRST STEP TO NOBEL PRIZE IN PHYSICS


  This is an International Competition in Physics Research Projects for High School (Lyceum) Students. The competition targets high school (lyceum) students who are interested in physics and are willing to perform their own research works in physics. At times, their results are very interesting and valuable. The Institute of Physics (in the Polish Academy of Sciences) organises the twenty-first competition in the 2012/2013 academic year, and invites the participation of students based on the rules given below. The title of the competition expresses dreams of all the physicists, especially of young physicists. We, however, feel necessary to underline that the FIRST STEP is a quite independent competition, without any links to any Nobel institution. New president of the Organising Committee of the competition is now prof. dr hab. Maciej Kolwas and secretary is dr Dorota Klinger.
 

GENERAL RULES:

1.  All the high school (lyceum) students regardless of the country, type of the school etc. are eligible for the competition. The only conditions are that the school cannot be considered as a university college and the age of the participant should not exceed 20 years on April 7, 2013.

2.  There are no restrictions concerning the subject matter of the papers, their level, methods applied etc. All these are left to the participants' choice. The papers, however, have to have a research character and deal with physics topics or topics directly related to physics.

3.  Every participant can submit one or more papers but each paper should have only one author. The total volume (i.e. text + figures + captions + tables + references) of each paper should not exceed 25 normal typed pages (about 50,000 characters). The papers have to be written in English.

4.  The papers will be refereed by the Organising Committee and the best will be awarded. The number of awarded papers is not limited. All the awards will be considered equivalent. The Authors of the awarded papers will be invited to the Institute of Physics (or to institutions co-operating with the Institute of Physics) for one month's research stay (the stays are scheduled for November 2013). The necessary stay expenses (without expenses for travel) will be paid by the organisers. Unfortunately, the travel expenses to and from Poland cannot be paid by the organisers and the winners will have to find some sponsors.

5.  In addition to the regular awards the Organising Committee may establish a number of honourable mentions. The participants who won the honourable mention receive diplomas, but they are not invited to the research stay.

6.  The deadline for submission of papers is April 7, 2013.
The preferred form of submission is on line submission by using the system available at our web page www.ifpan.edu.pl/firststep, where details can also be found.
Alternatively participants can send two hard copies of their papers by ordinary mail to: Dr. Dorota Klinger, Secretary of the FIRST STEP, Institute of Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, al. Lotników 32/46, 02-668 Warszawa

7.  Each paper submitted by traditional mail should be attached with the filled Participation Form (empty form is available from our home page: www.ifpan.edu.pl/firststep and in this proceedings)

8.  IMPORTANT: The papers that do not conform to the above mentioned formal conditions are not evaluated. In particular that refers to the following papers:

We hope that our competition will provide the pupils with an opportunity to compare their own achievements with the achievements of their colleagues from other countries. Also we hope that the stay of young scientists in our Institute will result in friendly relationship among them, what seems especially valuable for the future.

On behalf of the Organising Committee:
 
Prof. Yohanes Surya
(Jakarta, Indonesia)
Vice-President of the Organising Committee 		Prof. dr hab. Maciej Kolwas
(Warsaw, Poland)
President of the Organising Committee

 

Additional information on the competition and on the proceedings of the past competitions can be obtained from Dr. Dorota Klinger - phone: +48 22 116 3252; fax: +48 22-8430926; e-mail: kling@ifpan.edu.pl or from Prof. Dr. Yohanes Surya - e-mail: yohaness@centrin.net.id or from any of the following Members of the International Advisory Committee (IAC):

Mr. Can ALTINELLER altineller@gmail.com (also Turkish)
Mrs. Tildash BITUOVA daryn_alm@nursat.kz (also Kazakh)
Prof. Dr. Hiroshi EZAWA hiroshi.ezawa@gakushuin.ac.jp (also Japanese)
Dr. Zbigniew GORTEL gortel@phys.ualberta.ca 
Prof. Dr. Ibrahim GUNAL gunal@metu.edu.tr (also Turkish)
Dr. Avi I. HAUSER avihauser@yahoo.com 
Prof. Dr. Si-zhao JIN jinsz@ustc.edu.cn (also Chinese)
Dr. Hans JORDENS h.jordens@phys.rug.nl (also Dutch)
Dr. Andrzej KOTLICKI kotlicki@physics.ubc.ca 
Prof. Dr. Stanislav KOZEL sob@scph.mipt.ru (also Russian)
Dr. Juan LEON leon@imaff.cfmac.csic.es (also Spanish)
Prof. Dr. Ming-Juey LIN mjlin@phy.ntnu.edu.tw (also Chinese)
Prof. Dr. Leonid MARKOVICH markovich@bsu.by (also Belorussian)
Prof. Helmuth MAYR helmuthmayr@hotmail.com (also German)
Mr. Markus MUELLER markusm@physics.rutgers.edu (also German and French)
Dr. N. NAGESH nnagesh@mitgurukul.com
Prof. Dr. Shigetoshi NARA nara@elec.okayama-u.ac.jp (also Japanese)
Dr. Dwight E. NEUENSCHWANDER dneuensc@snu.edu 
Prof. Dr. Viktor URUMOV urumov@iunona.pmf.ukim.edu.mk (also Macedonian)
Mr. Srdan VERBIC verbic@octopus.phy.bg.ac.yu (also Serbian)
Prof. Dr. Paolo VIOLINO p.violino@tiscalinet.it (also Italian)
Prof. Dr. Ivo VOLF ivo.volf@uhk.cz (also Czech)
Prof. Dr. Arthur K. WEST arthurkwest@gmail.com 
Mr. Zhang Zhong-da zhongda_zhang@yahoo.com.cn (also Chinese)

The competition papers MUST be written in English, but to get an information about the competition the participants may contact the Members of the IAC also in other languages as shown in parentheses. Please remember that the Members of the IAC are not supervisors and they do not help in any concrete participants' research.

Complete information on the First Step can be found on our home page http://www.ifpan.edu.pl/firststep