Winning the Top Roentgenium Award - Cambridge Chemistry Challenge

Towards the end of the Trinity Term a number of our Lower Sixth Formers entered the Cambridge Chemistry Challenge in which they competed against another 9000 A level Chemists from across the country.  We are delighted to announce that Abdulla Ahmadi was placed in the top 56 entrants and thus won a Roentgenium Award (roentgenium is an extremely radioactive, synthetic element that is not found in nature.  It has the symbol Rg and atomic number 111 and appears in the periodic table below gold, which in turn is below silver, which in its turn is located beneath copper. These then are the possible levels; no sign of bronze, which is of course an alloy!). With only 0.6% of entrants achieving this award, very special congratulations go to Abdulla, who coincidentally also achieved a Gold Award in this year’s Chemistry Olympiad (a competition intended for Upper Sixth Form pupils).  Such achievements rank alongside those of Upper Sixth Former Calin Profir who in the past two years obtained Gold Awards in no fewer than five Physics and Astrophysics Olympiads.

Sherborne boys also scored 4 Gold Awards (that’s 25% of entrants versus 9% nationally), for this Petar Brinic, Ben Fuller, Aaron Kim and Jasper Pring should be warmly congratulated; 2 Silver Awards (Nathanael Fagerson and Harry Harvey) and 5 Copper Awards (Oscar Buxton, George Jefferson, Henry Le Cornu, Haruhito Sawata and Tim Shi). Well done to all that entered; it’s a significant achievement even to get on the scoreboard.

William Buckley, Head of Chemistry