From left to right: Quentin Marsal, Léa Lachaud, Flavien Museur, Elise Camus, Tristan Guyomar, Jeanne Bernard, Louison Thorens. All rights reserved
The fourth edition of the French Physicists' Tournament, organized by the Youth Commission of the French Physics society and sponsored by the Academy of Sciences and the Ministry of Higher Education and Research, took place in Paris, on 2 and 3 February 2017. The ENS de Lyon team came top, with a final score of 133.8 points. In April, our school will therefore represent France in Sweden.

Last year, for the first time, the ENS de Lyon team finished first in the national final, and then went on, a few months later, to win the international final of the International Physicists' Tournament (IPT). This year the team needed to defend their title.

After two days of intense and exciting meetings around ten open, unresolved and experimental physics problems, the ranking of French universities and schools was determined as follows: ENS Lyon 133.8 points; Polytechnic 127.2; University of Paris-Sud 123.8; Central Supélec 122.8; ENSTA ParisTech 115.4; ENS Ulm 112.8; Grenoble INP-Phelma 105.2. University Paris-Diderot 99.4; UPMC 96.4.

10 problems to solve:

• Too many magnets
• Lego tower
• Popcorn
• Aurora
• Water trailtrail
• Light-driven vehicle
• Walking chain
• The thing
• Flat treestrees
• Magnetic fissioning of droplets

Training and research
The preparation of the tournament and the competition itself requires students to work in teams to analyse a problem and to put forward a model. They also have to question a theory experimentally, meet researchers, present results, interact and work in an international context. And they need to do all of this in English!