Mattia Mauro

International Physicists' Tournament

I am part of the six students selected to represent Polytechnique for this international -mainly European- physics contest. It consists of an year-long research project, tackling around fifteen problems to solve in teams. You may find more information here.

The selection to be part of Polytechnique's team was based on one single problem: "An ice cube inside a mix of vegetable oil and baby oil will remain between the two liquids because of its density. As the ice cube melts and releases trapped bubbles, it goes up and down periodically in an intriguing way. Can this experiment be turned into a clock? What would be its longevity and precision? Optimize the setup parameters (shape, temperature, composition, length scales, etc.) to obtain the maximal clock precision."

You may find a video of the phenomenon here, and donwload my presentation.

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