The game is important to bring science to the most legal citizenship. And it is also the way to inspire the same science. Leonardo da Vinci, for example, was very fond of riddles, games, and tricks, which were undoubtedly a source of inspiration for his ideas. When Richard Feynman admitted that he was in prison after the Second World War, it was because he had stopped having fun.
So precisely the game is the main thread of the new exhibition of the science museum of Barcelona, Cosmocaixa. Its name is Top Science, because, unlike other exhibitions in which essential elements or discoveries are shown, it allows us to approach current leading researchers and research in which they are engaged. We are also facing space for the promotion of scientific vocations whose purpose is to foster effective cooperation between science and society.
The way to interact with these researchers, who often seem detached from society, is through play. As children, we learn almost exclusively through play, why should learning change so much when we are adults? Therefore, in Top Science, there are games for adults and children. As one in which I myself participated that consisted of interacting with a crypto researcher.
There is also space for the dissemination of the research itself, given that, on occasion, such investigations will initially be somewhat unintelligible to the visitor, as in the case of quantum cryptography. To do this, a vertical screen the size of a human being allows us to face the researcher from you to you, as we detail the details of the investigation.
Another interesting option is that, in each investigation, we can submit to a series of questions on which to show our agreement or disagreement at different levels. Said statistical information created by the visitors themselves will be subsequently analyzed by the researchers in order to evaluate the suitability of their research. Visitors themselves can also take a look at a statistical chart by sex about the responses that other visitors have offered. Questions of the kind, do you think this research is important?
The Top Science exhibition exhibits the most top of science, so it is inevitable that every six months the present research will be changed (and all the material generated, then, will be turned over on the Internet). Currently, the ongoing research on display is a quantum cryptography project, supervised by the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO), and another on the AIDS vaccine, from IrsiCaixa, the AIDS Research Institute.
From here show my gratitude to the organizers of the visit, which took place yesterday Monday, which meant that Cosmocaixa opened its doors only for us so that we could experience Top Science with total freedom.
