This year's edition of the Science Festival of the University of Barcelona, organized by the Scientific Culture and Innovation Unit "La UB Divulga", is held virtually.
Scheduled for May 8 and 9 for both schools and families, usually researchers explain and organize experiments about their ongoing research. In this edition, the traditional interactive workshops have been transformed into a series of videos on various scientific phenomena. ICCUB researchers present three workshops in the 2020 edition.
Created by astronomers from our institute, in the 3D constellation workshop we build the Orion constellation, taking into account both the position and distance of its stars.
The workshop at the VI UB Science Festival
Do you know what the Orion constellation is? Known in ancient times as "The Hunter", if we get closer, what shape does it have?
In the virtual edition of the workshop, you can discover how perspective influences how we see the stars in the sky. Our astronomer Eduard Masana will show you that they are not separated by the same distances, but can be very far from each other.
Based on the puzzle designed by CERN, in the workshop "Quarks: the bricks of matter" our researchers in nuclear physics propose several 3D combinations of the most fundamental pieces of matter, in order to form the protons and neutrons that build the atomic nuclei.
The workshop at the VI UB Science Festival
In the virtual edition, our researchers Assumpta Parreño, Marc Illa, Gloria Montaña and Íñigo Asiáin explain to you the theory of the Standard Model, which includes the fundamental particles and their interactions. Do you know what quarks are? How do they combine to form protons and neutrons?
Simulations of quantum mechanics
The workshop is a collaborative project between undergraduate students and professors and researchers, where basic concepts of quantum mechanics and ultra-cold gas physics are introduced to high school and undergraduate students through computer programs.
The workshop includes two labs. The Quantum Lab, with programs in quantum physics phenomena; and the Classical Lab, with a program on classical quantum mechanics and two models about solitons.
The workshop at the VI UB Science Festival
In the virtual edition of the workshop, our researcher Bruno Julià will show you different simulations, created in open software by undergraduate students of the Faculty of Physics. You will find a simulation of the motion of a set of ultra-cold atoms trapped in a potential well; a simulation of a soliton's motion in an atomic gas at temperature 0 K; and a simulation of a quantum Newton's pendulum.