Overview
A squirrel stuck in a tree. A circuit diagram cube. A nod to The Hunt for Red October. These are real figures from past Sir Isaac Newton (SIN) Exam papers, and they capture something rare in a high school physics contest: a sense of humor. Run by the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Waterloo, SIN has been handing students a two-hour problem set built around classical mechanics, free-body diagrams, and the occasional pop-culture twist for decades. Students from across Canada, the United States, and around the world participate each year, writing the same test online from their own schools. The contest is hard and fun at the same time — most students walk out with a score between 20% and 40%, and perfect papers are almost unheard of.
How the Exam Works
The exam is administered online, written under teacher supervision at a participating school within a single two-hour window on contest day. Each school chooses the two-hour block that works best for its schedule. Questions are as hard as first-year college physics, with a strong bias toward basic classical mechanics and common-sense problem-solving rather than memorized formulas.
The questions pull from across the high school physics curriculum:
- Motion problems (projectile motion, relative motion, frames of reference)
- Newton's laws, friction, tension, and equilibrium
- Work, energy, and power
- Momentum, impulse, and collisions
- Gravity, orbital motion, and circular motion
- Rotational motion, torque, and angular momentum
- Simple harmonic motion and waves
- Basic electricity and magnetism (Ohm's Law, Kirchhoff's Rules, electric and magnetic fields)
Scoring works in two stages:
- Electronic grading: Points are awarded for correct answers and subtracted for incorrect ones. Raw scores and statistics are available to teachers within a few days.
- Hand marking: Scanned copies of written solutions are requested by email for students whose raw scores are high enough to be in contention for high-achiever awards. Formal written solutions are only required for students who want to be considered for the scholarship.
Who It's For
Picture the kid who finishes physics homework and then asks the teacher whether the answer would change if the squirrel were on the moon. SIN rewards the student who treats a physics problem like a puzzle worth lingering over — who is willing to get stuck on a problem and stay there, sketching and re-sketching, reasoning through a scenario they've never seen before. A grade 11 or 12 physics background is genuinely helpful, but younger students with strong curiosity and the patience for hard problems are explicitly welcome. The questions are hard on purpose, but the contest itself is low-stakes — meant to be exploratory, not something a child should approach like a real exam.
What Makes This Different
Most physics contests read like a textbook; SIN reads like a problem set written by someone who actually wants students to enjoy themselves. Topical humor and unusual scenarios are part of the design, and the questions often weave together two or three areas of physics in a single problem — a motion setup that turns into an energy question, or a circuit problem dressed up as something far more elaborate. Writing the exam more than once is encouraged; the questions change every year.
Application & Eligibility
- Open to high school students in any grade, in any country
- Recommended physics background: grade 11 or 12
- Registration must be completed by a teacher or supervisory adult on behalf of students — students cannot self-register
- The exam must be written in a supervised environment — no self-administered tests
Cost & Information
- Entry fee: $4 per student (CAD)
- Registration typically opens in mid-March and closes in late April; the contest is held on one day in early May. Check the contest website for current dates.
- Format: online, two-hour window on contest day, written under teacher supervision
- Results: available to teachers within a few weeks of the exam
- A note on prizes: Unlike most contests in this space, SIN doesn't offer cash prizes or finalist awards. The Sir Isaac Newton Scholarship exists, but it's specifically an entrance scholarship to the University of Waterloo — only relevant if the top-scoring student chooses to study physics there. For everyone else, the reward is the experience and a certificate of participation.