The International Physicists' Tournament (IPT) is a physics competition for undergraduate students, bachelors or master level (or equivalent), in which students representing their nation and institution have typically 9 months to solve a set of challenging unsolved physics problems, then present and defend them to other teams.
Teams of up to 6 students are provided with a list of 17 problems which require a combination of experimental and theoretical approaches to their solution.
The presentation should include an outline which helps the audience to develop a good physical intuition for the problem.
The jury is made up of a panel of senior academics and members of the IPT international organising committee.
The grades are awarded based on a series of guidelines which vary for each role (Reporter, Opponent or Reviewer).
However, there is a certain level of subjectivity when it comes to awarding the marks and each jury member is encouraged to use his/her discretion when applying the guidelines.
The tournament is continuously managed by an executive committee composed of PhD and academic researchers and teachers from numerous participating countries.
The committee is in charge of the likes of; problem selection, year round communication to participants, maintenance of the website and outreach, maintaining and improving the rules and executing the decisions made by the representatives of the countries part of the IPT.
This is organised by the IOC member representing the country and ideally follows the format of the international competition using a subset of the 17 problems chosen.
The reports are graded by peer review from various academic research staff and then a rank is drawn to determine which nation's teams will qualify for the final tournament.
Six symbols placed in the orbit lobs represents (clockwise) Atomic physics, Crystallography, Classical mechanics, Thermodynamics, Electromagnetism and Optics.