Science Day CWI a succes

It was pleasantly busy during the science day at CWI last Saturday. In the central hall there was an opportunity to artistically hack ice. The assignment 'create a mathematical ice sculpture' led to impressive results, of which the remains may still be visible in the grass at the entrance of CWI.

The science day is a combined project with Science Park and this year's theme linked up with the knowledge week theme: the tip of the iceberg. CWI responded to this with a mini-class on climate changes, serving out ice creams, an ice sculpture course and a competition around a melting ice cube. The sculptures were popular and even led to a picture in Metro.

Besides the ice theme there was attention for mathematics in the form of puzzles, riddles and brainteasers from Pythagoras, the math magazine for young people. Cordula Rooijendijk, author of the bestselling book 'Alles moest nog worden uitgevonden' (All still had to be invented), reported on Dutch pioneers and even the Spyker sports car seems to benefit from mathematics as we learned from Barry Koren during his lecture on 'Flowing numbers around the Spyker sports car'. Jason Frank showed how a mathematician models climate changes.

Again this science day was a perfect opportunity to show the public how the world benefits from mathematics and how practical it can be.