École Polytechnique's team on the podium at the International Physicists' Tournament 2025

From April 7 to 13, 18 student teams gathered in Warsaw for the 17th finals of the International Physicists' Tournament. France was represented by École polytechnique, whose team had won the French final earlier in the year. 

The tournament is a succession of “Physics Fights” between three teams, in which each group plays a different role: one group presents its results on a given problem, another criticizes them in a constructive way, and a third moderates the discussions and synthesizes them. The problems are posed like open questions in physics. For example: why does the trickle of honey falling from a spoon sometimes stop flowing, oscillating up and down, before flowing out again? Is it possible to tell how quickly a sheet of paper has been torn into two pieces by examining its torn edges? Students are asked to provide both experimental and theoretical insights.

The X2023s Cléo Askénazy, Cédric Boden, Nino Causse-Feuillet, Adrien Delpla, Guillaume Robin and Thomas Temperville first made it through to the grand final, where they took bronze, behind teams from Germany and Switzerland, who tied for first place.

The X team was coached by Samy Ben Hamoudi (LADHYX instructor), Gaspard Aymerich (physics instructor) and Guilhem Gallot, from the Optics and Biosciences Laboratory.