Nederlandse Natuurkundige Vereniging

The Physics League Across Numerous Countries for Kick-ass Students (PLANCKS) was first held in the Netherlands by Studenten Physica in Nederland (SPIN), the Dutch umbrella association for physics study associations, as they decided to organize this international competition with the help of the International Association of Physics Students (IAPS). The first edition of PLANCKS took place in May 2014 in Utrecht, and since then PLANCKS is held annually in May.  PLANCKS is a theoretical physics competition for bachelor and master students. It is a three-day event containing an opening symposium, the contest itself, and filled to the brim with numerous excursions and social activities, where the participants are encouraged to discover the research environment and culture of the hosting country. It provides physics students from all over the world with the opportunity to get in touch with each other. The intention is to increase international collaboration, host social activities and stimulate the personal development of individual contestants. By bringing physics students from various parts of the world together, a setting to exchange ideas and experiences, and to challenge each other, is created.  The competition  Participants of PLANCKS compete in teams consisting of three to four bachelor or master students. The teams will, preferably, be comprised of students from the same country. During the competition they will answer challenging theoretical physics questions, designed to both challenge and entertain the competitors. Each country can submit a limited number of teams. Some countries organize preliminaries, and the winners of these preliminaries will participate in PLANCKS, while other countries select the interested participants at random. If you are interested in organizing a preliminary in your country, please contact the organizing committee of PLANCKS, and we will provide you with all the information needed.  

Amount of teams from each country:  Each country can send two teams. If the preliminary in you country had more than 14 teams this year (for PLANCKS 2019) or last year (for PLANCKS 2018), you are entitled to send 3 teams. The Netherlands can send 3 teams because they won the 2018 edition of PLANKCS.    Price  The participation fee for PLANKCS 2019 will be no more than 60 € per participant. There will be a possibility of two extra days (Thursday and Monday). The fee for these will be of the order of 25 € each.    Deadlines  Registration for preliminaries opens November 1st and closes mid March.   First round of registration for individual teams opens December 1st and closes around January 31th.  Second round of registration for individual teams opens in the beginning of February and closes mid March  When a preliminary registers, registration for individual teams from that country closes.  If more individual teams than allowed register during the first round of registration, we highly recommend you to organise a preliminary. We can help you with sharing problems with other preliminaries (see “Linking Preliminaries”).  If this is not possible the seats will be decided by a draw.   If more individual teams than allowed register during the second round of registration, we recommend you to organise a preliminary. If no such reasonable preliminary can be organised, the seats will be decided by a draw. Here the teams that registered during the first round have priority.   

the Physics League Across Numerous Countries for Kickass Students and its 6th edition is going to take place from the 17th to the 19th of May 2019 in Odense, Denmark!

For info: plancks2019@sdu.dk