It is really a very very exciting moment and news to share. Professor Farida Tahir's passionate and single-handed and painstaking efforts have been very well recognized when her very young protégé received a well deserved recognition by the New York Times in its 4th October 2017 edition according to which this 17-year old kid from Pakistan has been able to publish his research article in the journal of Royal Society Open Science on Wednesday, 4th October 2017. Check the following link out:
https://tribune.com.pk/story/1523473/17-year-old-pakistani-students-physics-paper-surprises-older-scientist/
Once the link opens after reading the news you may click on <The New York Times>. Again after reading the news you may click on <first Pakistani participants> and you will be able to read the news and watch the video which shows proud Professor Farida Tahir and her five team members holding Pakistani flags being recognized.
Dr. Farida Tahir, Associate Professor, Department of Physics at COMSATS Institute of Information Technology (CIIT) has been serving since 2005, at Islamabad Campus.
She has devoted herself for imparting Physics at all levels. She has Supervised/Co-Supervised several PhD, MS and BS students and there are good number of students at all three levels being supervised by her in one of the most complicated and complex branch of Physics i.e. High Energy Particle Physics.
During this period Dr. Farida realized that it will be more fruitful to target the youth with tender minds i.e. the students of Secondary and Higher Secondary level and she took it as a challenge to engage them. Initially, it was convenient to start with my own subject. She knew about International Young Physicists Tournament, IYPT a competition that is held annually. IYPT, often referred to as the Physics world cup, is one of the World's foremost annual physics competitions centered on 17 non-examination research problems, team work, and discussion-based sessions called Physics Fights where the performances of the teams are judged by expert physicists. The IYPT is a week-long event in which currently around 150 international pre-university contestants participate. The participants present and discuss their research projects at the events that share common features with thesis defense or scientific conferences. The teams switch roles and take floor as Reporters, Opponents and Reviewers, thus learning about peer review early on in their school years.
The concept was conceived in 1979 by Evgeny Yunosov and was run as the Russian Young Physicists' Tournament, an event localised to Russia. He went on to initiate the first IYPT in 1988.
After getting first hand knowledge and experience in 24th IYPT held in Iran in 2011, it took almost five years to get this dream in reality and Dr. Farida in 2016, took the first ever, Team Pakistan in 29th IYPT. It was very difficult task, but Dr. Farida put all her efforts and task was made easy through the support of colleagues, Physics Department, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, LUMS, GC University Lahore and Habib University Karachi.
Today, we as a Nation are proud to hear the achievement of Mr. Shaheer Niazi one of the participants, representing Pakistan in 29th IYPT. The other star of the same group is Mr. Ahad Butt, whose model of magnetic train was highly appreciated by the participants, jurors and even opponents. His suggested solution not only received great appreciation but also won Mr. Ahad an admission and scholarship in Colombo University, NY, Islamabad (see attachment please).
This year again, the solution suggested to the problem, “the safe landing of a raw egg of hen from the height of 2.5 meters” was a hit at 30th IYPT held this year. Mr. Arij used Non- Newtonian liquid (Oobleck) instead of any Newtonian liquid.
After one year of participating in IYPT for the first time, Pakistan Young Physics Tournament was held at National levelin April2017 through the courtesy of Pak Turk Boys College, Chak Shahzad Campus, Islamabad PYPT. For next year we are accepting good number of participants at national level.
The Nationals to select Team Pakistan for 31st IYPT will take place in two phase 1st phase in January and 2nd in March 2018 again through the courtesy of Pak Turk Boys College, Chak Shahzad Campus, Islamabad.
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