The ninth edition of the Silesian Science Festival Katowice is underway! See how we spent the first day experimenting, discovering the secrets of various fields of science and creatively searching for new paths of knowledge!
At noon, the official opening of the 9th Silesian Science Festival Katowice took place on the Main Stage, presided over by the Director General of ŚFN, Prof. Ryszard Koziołek. Then, representatives of the event hosts and the Academic Consortium – Katowice City of Science launched a Goldberg machine built especially for this occasion by eminent scientists from the Polish world of experiments: Jerzy Jarosz, PhD, DSc, Assoc. Prof. and Wiktor Niedzicki, PhD. After the ceremonial inauguration, Prof. Koziołek led a discussion with Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education Karolina Zioło-Pużuk, PhD on the future of Polish science entitled ‘Evaluation? Evolution? Revolution? – what do Polish universities need?’.
As every year, the rich and diverse programme of the Festival included unique activities that attracted great interest from participants. Together with Katie Steckles, PhD, we explored mathematical puzzles and problems that remain unsolved to this day (‘Maths's Greatest Unsolved Puzzles’), and under the guidance of Anna Bukiewicz-Szul, we took a look behind the scenes of the largest orbital laboratory and learned about its construction, operation and extraordinary technologies (‘Engineering and Everyday Life on the International Space Station’), and during a lecture by Prof. Włodzisław Duch, we discovered the complex world of artificial intelligence (‘Artificial Intelligence vs. Human Brains’). Prof. Jerzy J. Wysłocki, in turn, put us in a Christmas mood with his lecture ‘Santa Claus through the eyes of a physicist’, during which we looked at the figure of Santa Claus and the technical details of his gift delivery from a scientific point of view and using the tools of physics, astronomy and mathematics.
Throughout the day, we were able to take part in the Nobel Panel, organised in cooperation with the Centre for Cooperation and Dialogue at the University of Warsaw. As part of the event, renowned researchers discussed, among other things, the future of the Nobel Prizes, the promotion of science among a wide audience, and the significance of the Nobel Prize for young researchers. Fascinating encounters with science took place on the stage ‘I Like Science: The Power of Experiments’, organised in cooperation with Tomasz Rożek, PhD. The activities addressed issues such as the key aspects of the human + AI formation, emphasising an approach based on co-creation rather than replacing humans (‘AI – experiment or new reality?’), or the way in which human-machine relationships influence the development of emotional competences ( ‘AI as a social experiment. AI companion and attachment style’).
The events taking place in the special zones of the 9th ŚFN also provided extraordinary experiences – the festival audience could listen to a debate on experiments in cinema and participate in polar film screenings (including ‘Cold Land’ and ‘Polar Fever’) in the Film Zone, learn about the game “Ibru” based on Olga Tokarczuk's novel ‘Anna In the Tombs of the World,’ and explore the mysterious world of Stanisław Lem's books in the Science Fiction Zone.
The first day of the Festival also featured the POP Science 2025 Awards ceremony, during which we met the winners of this year's competition. The winners include:
● Sebastian Szklarek, PhD, creator of the blog Świat Wody (Water World) (website or blog);
● Mateusz Kalisz, creator of the AstroLife channel (video blog);
● Piotr Kosek and Leszek Błaszkiewicz, PhD, DSc, creators of the POP Science podcast (podcast or radio programme);
● Katarzyna Wyrwas, PhD, DSc, Assoc. Prof. from the University of Silesia (think globally, act locally – universities);
● Damian Jabłeka, astronomer, science populariser and creator of the Touch the Sky project (think globally, act locally – residents of the Silesian Province).
During the ceremony, the POP Science 2025 Special Award – Outstanding Science Communicator was also presented. This prestigious award was received by journalist Jarosław Juszkiewicz and the popular science portal Pulsar.
The 1st POP Science Congress and Academy of Science Communication Skills will also take place from 5 to 7 December. The events, which include industry meetings and networking sessions, aim to build a programme of joint activities and increase the importance of the scientific communication community. The schedule also includes a series of workshops led by a distinguished group of science popularisers who share their knowledge of proven tools and practices for disseminating knowledge in various fields.
During the breaks between festival activities, we were also able to admire Luke Jerram's stunning Helios sculpture. The installation masterfully combined the finest details of the Sun's architecture with a spatial sound composition by Duncan Speakman and Sarah Anderson.
At the end of the first day of the Festival, an Evening in the City of Science was held, which began with an excellent concert entitled ‘Sounds of Knowledge’ performed by the Silesian University of Technology Symphony Orchestra. Under the baton of conductor Miłosz Korpol, the musicians took us through various musical worlds – from classical music, through film music, to Latin American rhythms, masterfully combining the world of sound and art into a unique spectacle.
At 7 p.m., the long-awaited performance entitled ‘EXPERYMENT’ (EXPERIMENT), directed by Piotr Jankowski, began. The play, inspired by the famous prison experiment conducted in 1971 by Prof. Philip Zimbardo, touched on the subject of morality of a person forced to function in an oppressive reality. The engaging performance invited the audience into the fascinating (and disturbing!) world of psychological research ethics, and by exploring the dark spaces of the human interior, it invited reflection on the nature of good and evil and prompted a confrontation with our knowledge of ourselves.
The performance was followed by a discussion entitled ‘How well do we really know ourselves?’, during which we joined experts in examining how far we are willing to go to discover the truth about human beings. The meeting was attended by: director Piotr Jankowski, Mariola Paruzel-Czachura, PhD, DSc, Assoc. Prof., Prof. Marcin Zajenkowski, and Rafał Cekiera, PhD, Assoc. Prof. The meeting was moderated by Marcin Moroń, PhD.
See the photo report from the first day!
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