Five RI students join physics contest in Poland

Kurniawan Hari, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

Indonesia is sending five high school students to contest the International Conference of Young Scientists 2005 in Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science, and Ecology in Katowice, Poland.

This will be the first time that Indonesia has participated in the annual competition since 1993.

The students are being coached by Yohanes Surya from the Indonesian Institute for Physics Development to improve their chances.

The five students are Kridha Handaya of Taruna Nusantara Senior High School in Magelang, Central Java; Dhina Susanti of SMA 3 Senior High School in Semarang, Central Java; Chrysanthy Rebecca of Dian Harapan Senior High School in Banten; Annike Bowaire of SMA 1 Senior High School in Serui, Papua; and Diatra Zulaika of Al Izhar Islamic Junior High School in Pondok Labu, Jakarta.

Kridha will present his research on the Physics of a Gong, a traditional Javanese musical instrument, while Dhina and Chrysanthy will explain their research on the Physics of a Shuttlecock.

Annike and Diatra will present their paper on the Chaotic Signature in the Horizontal Spring System.

"Their studies are original ones. I am optimistic they will bring medals home upon completion of the contest," Surya said here on Thursday.

The three papers have won a recent domestic competition participated in by more than a hundred students.

The five students will depart for Poland on Saturday and will stay there until April 30. Their participation is fully supported by PT Medco Energy, PT Indologistics, and PT Rio Tinto Indonesia.

Last year, a high school student from Papua Septinus George Saa won a gold medal at the 12th annual physics contest the First Step to a Nobel Prize in Physics, for his work called Infinite Triangle and Hexagonal Lattice Networks of Identical Resistor.

The work demonstrated a new method for calculating the resistance between two nodes in a hexagon.