Second prize at the EU Contest for Young Scientists

In 2019 Olli Järviniemi, then a School of Mathematics student, represented Finland at the European Union Contest for Young Scientists (EUCYS) in Sofia, Bulgaria, with his research project “Common prime factors of polynomials”. This is his account, translated from the Finnish original.

The trip began memorably: I had spent six hours at Helsinki-Vantaa airport waiting for the group to meet at 4:15 in the morning. The journey itself went well – we boarded on time, and in Bulgaria EUCYS had arranged transport to our hotel. Not every arrangement worked perfectly, though: the dinner on the opening day, for example, was cancelled. That didn’t spoil anything; we went to a restaurant and had a delicious noodle meal instead.

The next day brought the opening ceremony and the first judging session. The ceremony was a traditional one, with general information and a few speeches in both Bulgarian and English. The judging session lasted two and a half hours, and one judge came to my stand. The interview was pleasant – the judge asked interesting questions. In the evening we walked around the city and then went back to the hotel for dinner.

The next two days were set aside for judging, each with two three-hour interview sessions separated by a lunch break. On the first day not a single judge came to see me, which left me mildly frustrated. On the second day I had four interviews in all, which went about as expected. The most memorable and enjoyable one consisted of roughly fifteen minutes of a judge praising the work and gasping in astonishment.

On the evening of the last judging day there was a panel discussion with distinguished speakers, including Bulgaria’s deputy minister of education. The audience could suggest topics, and I got to ask the panel what they thought about natural talent and how they saw their own abilities – something I had been wondering about for a long time. One panellist, a researcher working at CERN, said they often think other people do better science than they do.

I didn’t exactly enjoy the heat in Sofia, but for the award ceremony I reluctantly put on a suit anyway. The ceremony was held in the grand Bulgaria Hall. Besides the speeches, there was music, including a children’s choir. I was fairly confident I would get something, but I was pleasantly surprised to receive a second prize – and a trip to a conference in London!

The journey home was not entirely smooth. We had about an hour to change planes in Frankfurt, and an endless-seeming bus ride and the security queue ate most of it. In the end I ran nearly a kilometre to the gate, with two heavy backpacks and a laptop under my arm, only to find we had already missed the flight. We were given a hotel room near the airport for the night and a replacement flight to Finland the next morning, and enjoyed a tasty dinner and breakfast at the hotel.

The logistics faltered here and there, but in the end everything worked out well. The food was excellent (apart from the cocktail snacks, which I wasn’t so keen on), and I got to meet scientists from outside mathematical circles. And the honour of the prize, the pocket money and the amazing trip to London still warm my heart.