The Intellectual Offspring of Milankovic is doing quite well, thank you

Srbija najbolja na Astronomskoj olimpijadi (my translation):

Serbia, whose most modern telescope was built at the beginning of the 20th century and was brought to Belgrade as part of WWI war reparations, won two gold and two bronze medals at the 11th World Astronomy Olympiad in Bombay earlier this month. Olympic winners from Serbia are students of the first [ninth] grade of the Mathematical Gymnasium in Belgrade: Luka Milicevic and Natasa Dragovic. Milicevic competed in the younger category as he is 15 years old, while Dragovic is only 14. On the Serbian team were also Aleksandar Vasiljkovic, also a first grade student of Mathematical Gymnasium, and Ivana Cvijovic, the second grade student - they got bronze medals.

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Luka Milicevic exlained that the competiiton cosisted of a theoretical part, solving problems that required the knowledge of Physics and mathematics, and a practical part that consisted of observations of the sky both with naked eye and through telescope, then using the observations to solve problems, e.g., calculating mass of a galaxy from its rotation rate.

International Astronomy Olympiad sees 'starry' contestants

The performance of students in the International Astronomy Olympiad (IAO) here was "par excellence", reflected by the fact that the number of gold medals awarded to top performers had to be raised from 10 to 13 this year, an organising committee member said.

Five Indian students bagged gold medals, the highest by any country in the competition organised by the Euro-Asian Astronomical Society. The meet concluded here yesterday.

Normally, the IAO awards 10 gold, 20 silver and 30 bronze medals. But this time the judges demanded that the number of gold medals be increased to 13 due to the excellent performance by many students, Anand Ghaisas, member of IAO's National Organising Committee, told reporters after the award ceremony.

That is how five Indian students won gold medals, he said. This was the fifth consecutive year that India topped the competition, which drew 120 contestants from 19 nations. South Korea won three gold medals followed by Serbia (two), Russia, Iran and Bulgaria (one each).

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This year's IAO had several unique things. The students were given actual data of the Giant Meterwave Radio Telscope (GMRT) near Pune for analysis. "They got to handle real-time data in the practical round," Ghaisas said.

In the observation rounds, the students were taken to GMRT and provided 15 optical telescopes in a field under darkness. Each student had to be there for a half-an-hour exam. "The weather was excellent and the observation test took place between 7.30 pm and 11 pm," he said.

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The results seem consistient with the impression I have that the formerly weak developing countries are going to become the scientific powerhouses of the near future. It looks like the US and Europe are going to pass the torch (of scientific progress) soon.

Eastern Europe has a long tradition of strong interest in science, reverence for science, and a quality science education. See my "Darwin in Serbia" post from a couple of days ago.