Olympic illustrations (21st of June 2011)

Last week a paper of mine entitled >> "Theoretical and experimental analysis of a thin elastic cylindrical tube acting as a non-Hookean spring", Phys. Rev. E 83, 067601 (2011) (click for download) was published. This work comprises of a theoretical and an experimental analysis of small and large deformations of a thin-walled cylinder and the application of the thus obtained insight to the objects and systems of importance in biophysics and nanoscience. The device that was used to perform the measurements was especially constructed for the purpose and it is shown in the image above.

The publication of this paper closes a circle of an activity that lasted for almost two years now. The activity concerns my engagement in the academic organization of the 41st International Physics Olympiad that was organized in Zagreb from 17th to 25th of July, 2010. As a member of the Academic Committee of the Olympiad I participated in the preparation of all the tasks for the competition, in the presentation of the tasks to the team leaders and in the supervision of the marking of the tasks that were attempted to be solved by 400 high school competitors from all over the world. I invented one of three theoretical tasks and one of two experimental tasks (in co-authorship with Hrvoje Buljan). All in all, I spent a good part of year 2010, and a piece of year 2009 preparing the material for the Olympiad. Looking at it from a year distance, I am not sorry for that. I am only sorry that I had to tolerate people who did not deserve it, but I will speak about it no longer in this post.

Thus, I return to the Olympiad, the tasks, the science, and the illustrations - all of this will be mixed in this post, as in usual in the "Construction of Reality". First of all, let me explain what is the relation of the publication of the paper mentioned in the opening of this post with the International Physics Olympiad: a simplified version of science discussed in >> the paper was used to create an experimental task for the Olympiad. The task (in English) >> can be downloaded HERE. The whole story about this task is a long and complicated (and interesting) one, but to cut the long story short: our organization was somewhat "short" financially so we had to come up with a good experiment that would also be cheap. The experimental setup shown in the opening picture was used exactly for that purpose - its parts and its production were really cheap, and we hoped that the physics that could be introduced and explained by it was interesting enough. We also hoped that the experimenting on it required enough discipline and precision characterizing a good scientific work. The making and the design of the setup was helped by Hrvoje Mesić and Tomislav Vuletić.

While I was presenting the experimental task to the team leaders, at the near end of my presentation Hrvoje Buljan (who was the president of the Academic Committee and the coauthor of the task) took the setup, raised it high in the air and carried it through the hall of the State Archive while I continued talking. Of course, we earlier agreed on this "show", and when my presentation ended, we introduced the break and sent the team leaders to the corridor in front of the hall where several copies of the setup were exhibited. They invited quite an attention, as did the problem that I invented. On the photograph below one can see worried faced of the team leaders as they carefully examine the setup. I borrowed the photograph from the web pages of the German Olympic team. (The Germans and the Hungarians were the best European teams. The Chinese were the best team overall.)

For my engagement in the organization of the Olympiad, my illustration skills were not that important. Yet, when I look back, I can clearly see that I also contributed there - my illustrations figure in 4 of 5 tasks in total (3 in theory and 2 in experiment).

The second theoretical task was about the physics of gases flowing through the tall chimneys and about the solar chimney power plants. I invented that task, and >> you can download the version in English HERE. The image below shows the illustration that I made for this task.

For the third theoretical task I made several illustrations that were meant to show different ways of "crystalline" packing of nucleons within an atomic nucleus. A simple cubic packing is shown in the image below. That image remained in the final version of the task which you can download >> HERE. The author of the task is Matko Milin.

The image below shows the face centered cubic (FCC) packing of nucleons, but this image was dropped from the final version of the task. Namely, the final text of each task is, according to the rules of the Olympiad, determined in the communication of the authors and the team leaders. During the Olympiad in Zagreb, this communication (moderation) took place in the building of the Croatian State Archive, after the presentation of each task.

Finally, for the third theoretical task, I also made a sketch of the "random" packing of spheres. This sketch is shown in the image below and it persisted through, until the final version of the task.

The second experimental task dealt with the interaction of rod-shaped and torus-shape magnets. That task, whose authors are Ivica Aviani and Berti Erjavec, can be downloaded >> HERE, and the illustration that I made for it is shown in the image below.

The only task that I didn't illustrate was the one whose author is Hrvoje Štefančić and it exposes the application of the method of images in electrostatics. This task can be downloaded >> HERE.

I could write a huge amount of text on the subject of International Physics Olympiad in Zagreb. I don't know whether I'll ever write it, but I do know that I will not write it in this post. Yet, there are still some more sentences and illustrations that belong to this post. I already said that the final variant of each task was harmonized by moderation. After the determination of the final versions of all the tasks, they needed to be translated to the languages of the teams. This lasted to the late night / early morning hours. The translations were performed by the national team leaders on the computers that were prepared especially for this feat. That is not all that simple as it may seem, because people write in many different ways, so the computers needed to have special fonts installed.

Do you know, for example, how people write in the land where >> Rabo Karabekian originates from, Armenia? Well, I also didn't know it, but I was surprised to get mail from Rabo's country that contained the publication whose title page is shown in the image below.

This is the publication that contains problems from the Armenian National contest in physics and from the Olympiad in Zagreb. The title page of this publication (above) shows the Armenian Olympic team. The first page of the experimental task that I authored is shown in the Armenian version in the image below.

And here you have a Vonnegut type of weirdness that, through physics, connected me with the country of Rabo Karabekian.

I can remember the Olympiad through some material things also, through the gifts of the teams from India and Indonesia. The team from India was particularly proud of their female contestant who was the best positioned among all the female competitors (gold medal). From them I got as a gift the pot with living colors. I illustrated it in the image below in the technique of ink and gouache. I didn't yet grasp this technique, but the illustration of the Indian gift was fairly successful (below).

The Indonesian team was lead by two young professors (or scientists?). As a gift, they gave me a doll/puppet that is used in their traditional theater (?). The doll is about 50 cm high, it has a guiding sticks attached to its hands which enable a puppeteer to steer it, and last year, when I was only starting to practice drawing, I illustrated its head. This pencil illustration is shown in the image below.

So, from the scientific paper, through high school physics problems, computer generated illustrations, Rabo Karabekian and Armenia, images in ink and gouache, pencil drawings, all that represents the ideal mixture for a post in the Construction of Reality that ends here.

UPDATE (5th of September, 2011): I almost forgot... I also authored the "spare" theoretical problem that was prepared in case that one of the problems be rejected in the moderation process. The problem deals with the simplified physics of medieval siege machine called trebuchet and you can >> download it HERE. The Task 5 of the problem was formulated and solved by Matko Milin.

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Last updated on 5th of September 2011.