Skip to main content

Winners of Physics Olympiads visit ESRF

15-04-2016

On 21st April 2016, the ESRF welcomed the winners of the 2nd prize in the French national physics Olympiads competition. They are a team of six high school students from the Lycée Viette in Montbéliard (north-east from Grenoble), who won the prize for their work entitled “When the Atmosphere plays with Light”.

  • Share

The students are Heidi Macherel,Caroline Marion, Valentine Marion, Guillaume Demet, Enzo Sacchi, Bertrand Turck. The visit to the ESRF, together with a cash prize, was the prize of the competition. They visited the ESRF control room from where the particle accelerators are operated before getting some hands-on experience by fishing for crystals and preparing samples in the molecular biology laboratory. They pursued the visit with a tour of several beamlines, notably ID24, which studies high pressure and extreme conditions. The group then got the chance to discuss life as a researcher with the Palaeontology team headed by Paul Tafforeau. At the end of the visit, the students explained that the experience had helped them to be even more convinced of following a career in science. 

Winning stratospheric balloon

The aspiring physicists won their trip to the ESRF thanks to their successful project with the school’s science club. They designed, built and equipped a stratospheric balloon to observe the sunrise from 26 km above the Earth. The data collected from the detectors placed on the balloon were then analysed around two main themes: the role of the Earth’s atmosphere in the “magical” colours of the sky, and the atmosphere: a shield for Earth?

The French National Olympiads is an annual competition organised since 1992 by the Union of Physics and Chemistry Teachers and the French Physics Society.

OLYMPIADES PHYSIQUE_2016_04_21-1.jpg (OLYMPIADES DE PHYSIQUE_LYCEE VIETTE)

The winners, with their teachers, listening to an introduction to the ESRF at the visitors' centre. Credits: C. Argoud.