Ching Hua was part of the team representing Singapore at the International Physics Olympiad in 2003, and has taken the time to share some of his views.
ZDT: Tell us a bit about yourself.
I am a scientist at the Institute of High Performance Computing (IHPC) of A*STAR, and graduated with a PhD in theoretical physics from Stanford University last year. Previously, I also did my undergraduate studies at Stanford. Life in Silicon Valley was interesting and challenging, but relaxing at the same time. There were countless opportunities to interact with the best brains in the world, be they in academics, the arts or entrepreneurship, and then bask in stunning scenery after a day’s work. Right now, my full-time job is to solve interesting math/physics problems.
ZDT: What do you remember of your Physics Olympiad experience?
It all happened more than a decade ago, but I still remember it pretty vividly. Actually, it was through Physics Olympiad training sessions that I “discovered” that I had the penchant for physics. Back in those days, the culture of Olympiads were probably not as strong, and I had not heard of physics competitions until the Singapore Physics Olympiad (SPhO) was looming.
Fortunately, my Junior College (JC) library had good undergraduate textbooks (e-books and portable screen readers were uncommon then), as well as the “ten-year series” (TYS) for PhD qualifying exams. So I struggled through them till I made it… then fast forward to the actual IPhO competition, it was the first time that I met so many like-minded peers from all around the world. I made some friends and learned what it really meant to play hard and work hard!
ZDT: How has physics influenced your life?
It is no understatement that physics is not just a collection of concepts, but is a lens through which we see the world. As someone who reads or think about physics almost every day, I can’t resist the tendency to think about the similarities between objects, people, ideas, etc.
Reductionism forms the core of thinking physically, where theorems/results are celebrated for their universality. We analyze how ferromagnetic transitions are similar to market crashes, and attempt to draw predictions from that. Ordinary people recognize differences in real life more strongly than they embrace similarities, and are missing out a lot of insights (of course, it takes a trained eye to identify the real patterns from the spurious ones).
ZDT: Any other comments or advice for students?
In life, clarity of thought and action is extremely important. Do think about what you really want or enjoy, and try to strategize your next few years around attaining those goals. For those of you going to serve National Service (NS), there will be plenty of time to reflect and prepare for the future (for my case, I went over the entire undergrad physics syllabus in NS).
While striving for your goals, don’t be too single-minded though. What is important for you now may not always be what really matters in the future. When obstacles arise, try to “transcend” them: instead of trying to overcome the obstacle head-on, try to make them irrelevant. If you find yourself in a rat race, see if you can join another race where you aren’t just a rat.
Singapore Physics Olympiad Training (SPOT) 