AS IF BEING a two-time U.S. Math Olympian weren’t enough, senior Alex Zhai has qualified for the U.S. Physics Team.

The team consists of 24 of the brightest physics students in the nation, who will train and contend for five spots on the traveling team that will compete in the 39th International Physics Olympiad, to be held in Hanoi, Vietnam, July 20-29.

Zhai will attend the annual U.S. Physics Team training camp May 17-28 at the University of Maryland in College Park. Zhai and his teammates will spend their days at camp studying, testing, and solving challenging physics problems.

He will return to Champaign-Urbana in time to graduate with his classmates on May 31, but he won't have much of an opportunity to relax.

If Zhai is one of the five students selected for the traveling team, he will return to College Park for three additional days of intense preparation to ready himself for the international competition, in which the U.S. will face 80 other countries.

“I’ve always liked physics and I’d known about this for a while, but for some reason I just didn’t get around to entering in previous years,” said Zhai. “This year I decided, well, it’s my last chance to do physics contests, so I entered.”

Zhai underwent three rigorous examinations, one in January and two in March, in order to qualify for the team. The most recent one consisted of two 90-minute parts, the first with four questions
and the second with two longer questions.

According to Zhai, the topics were "typical second-year physics fare, except a bit more complex."

Zhai is used to taking high-level exams. He has taken the USA Math Olympiad exam for five straight years. In fact, today he wrapped up the second day of the 2008 USAMO exam, which will determine whether he will continue in his quest for a third straight spot on the U.S. International Mathematical Olympiad Team.

So how do the physics exams compare to those in math?

“The problems were a different type,” said Zhai. “Even though physics is very similar to math, the kind of thinking you do is sort of different. The math part of the physics isn’t that challenging for me, but I think that I do find the ways you make connections between different concepts interesting, and [physics] is more grounded in reality.”

This year, more than 2,830 students took the preliminary exam, from which 417 students advanced to the quarterfinals. It was from the 158 students who advanced to the semifinals that the U.S. Physics Team was selected.

Uni physics teacher Jim “Ray” Carrubba has been Zhai's sponsor throughout the selection process, which is organized by the American Association of Physics Teachers.

Despite his success, Zhai can't have it all. Because of the overlapping dates of the Physics Olympiad (July 20-29) and Math Olympiad (July 10-22 in Madrid, Spain), he won't be able to compete in both.

But that's a bridge to be crossed later, since Zhai still has to qualify for the traveling team.

Not that he seems too stressed by the task that lies ahead.

In his typically modest, laid-back tone, Zhai says that in preparation for the training camp he will “probably happen to be reading some things relating to general relativity in the next few weeks.”