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IC16: IMAGINARY around the world

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IC16: IMAGINARY around the world
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15
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26
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CC Attribution 3.0 Germany:
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Subject Area
Genre
Multiplication signImaginary numberLecture/Conference
MathematicianImaginary numberLecture/Conference
Presentation of a groupEvent horizonImaginary numberLecture/Conference
Perspective (visual)Term (mathematics)TrailRight angleLecture/Conference
Lecture/Conference
Meeting/Interview
MathematicsComputer programmingStudent's t-test
Student's t-test
Lecture/Conference
Local ringPresentation of a groupCartesian coordinate systemMeeting/Interview
MathematicsMereologyTerm (mathematics)
Universe (mathematics)Event horizonMeeting/Interview
MathematicsEnergy levelStudent's t-test
Meeting/Interview
Energy levelArithmetic mean
MathematicsEnergy levelEvent horizon
Multiplication sign
Energy levelPhysical systemFamilyStudent's t-testProcess (computing)Lecture/Conference
MathematicsWave packetUniverse (mathematics)Social classOpen setProcess (computing)Multiplication sign
Projective planeImaginary numberMeeting/Interview
MathematicsLetterpress printingMathematicianGroup representationLecture/Conference
MathematicsModel theoryPerturbation theoryUniverse (mathematics)Loop (music)Local ringEvent horizonDifferent (Kate Ryan album)Element (mathematics)Multiplication signLecture/Conference
MereologyComplex number
Universe (mathematics)Lecture/Conference
MereologyMultiplication sign
Transcript: English(auto-generated)
So I would say, let's have a couple of minutes for general questions to the speakers.
Then I would give a very brief word to every of the four new members here. Just in one minute, I'm sorry that we didn't have time to invite you to present your whole country activities. But maybe in just one minute you can explain what you did with Imagineering in your country.
And then I have one question, for example, that would fit to all of you. But maybe the audience also has some questions about this. I don't know if it's difficult for me to look at it from a neutral perspective, but it's a kind of phenomenon, what's happening here, a movement that everybody, like all mathematicians suddenly are organizing exhibitions.
So I think there are a lot of questions why and how and what is the next step to it. So before we start, I would give the word to the public, connected to questions for the four talks. Thanks. My question goes to Pak.
So you talked about satisfaction, you measure satisfaction in your presentation. So I just wanted to know how you do that. Because one of the things that we, one of the challenges that we have also as aims is how we follow up. For example, when we host an imaginary event, we have a challenge of measuring impact after the event has happened,
and we don't have a clear way of following up. The question that we, I mean, the visitors are asked to fill out the questionnaire at the end of their tour. So while things are still fresh in their minds, and then they are asked to, let's say, choose from 0 to 5 scale,
I mean, in terms of satisfaction. So it's just what they choose. And apparently, I mean, you know, things are still fresh in their minds, and they are excited, and of course, usually they tend to take 5, so, right.
But I think actually, in my experience, it's important to do, to actually ask them to do this questionnaire, because it helps them, it's making them to think again about their experience and how it helped them. So it not only helps us to keep track of things, but it actually helps them to have a perspective of what they saw.
Another question? I have a question for the Uruguay team.
What happened when the little kid would come every day with his grandfather? He's still there. He's crying now. He was amazing, really. He was working with Surfer, and because of this contest, he really wanted to make pictures with Surfer, and he ended up learning a lot of the geometry, because he was, I don't know, trying to make a matte.
He was really thinking about what to do before and trying to do that, and so he had to learn to intersect, and he was 7, maybe, 8? I don't know. And he was learning how to intersect and how... I don't know.
Is there contact still? I mean, I wonder, with these exhibitions... I don't know if he's... No. Is he in contact with us? I don't know. No. But Diego goes there every week, so...
Should I add one more thing? Because of what you asked about the contact. But we do have students now in the math program that were studying to teach math in high schools, and they didn't even know they could study just math, like only math.
They thought to learn math, they had to study to become teachers. And so now we have in the science school new students that they learn about this because of imaginary going to their town. Hello. I know that you all organize some imaginary conferences somewhere in the world,
and I wondered which is the biggest problem you face besides founding or the regular problems that one could expect if one to organize some kind of exhibition. I don't know, in your experience, which one is the one that you recommend people
to take care with, more careful, or I don't know, whoever he wants. Besides money, I would say human resources. You need a lot of people working. Well, it depends on how you want to do it, but you have to start with a big team, I think,
of volunteers and, yeah, I think... Because if not, you end up doing everything, and it's very exhausting. Sorry, I have a question.
Okay, so for us, apart from funding and the logistics, our biggest challenge is to get the local community involved, because from the database of applicants we've received, the kind of abstracts they send to us is scientific-based.
It's the traditional presentation where they want to present their research, so I don't understand whether they don't understand what we put out there on the website in terms of projecting maths in a fun way, in a way that can be interactive,
that can attract the public, that can be understood broadly. So at the end, the local community tells us, yes, they see imaginary the concept
and they would like to be exposed to this, but at the end, getting them to the events, to be part of the events, not just to be attendees, it's quite challenging, so we have to do a lot of outreach to go to the universities, to talk to the faculties,
and in Senegal, we actually had to actually set up an exhibition at the university. I wasn't present, but the whole event was organized in a way that the exhibition had to go to the university
because it was challenging for us, for them to come to us, to show them exactly what we're talking about. So what we would like to see is how do we get the researchers, the researchers who are doing research and coming up with new research concepts,
how do we get them involved in such a platform in a way that it's making the communication of the maths more relevant, and how are they also going to help to support secondary high school teachers who are training the students at the much lower level.
So these are things we still struggle with. Can I add something? Just, of course, I think the answer on your question is depending also on how your country is organized
and communication with teachers, et cetera, there are several practical problems, but like in our case where we focused on schoolteachers and so on, we found the Olympiad, which is present in every school, is a very, very interesting mean of communication. And creating awareness, first of all at the teacher's level about what is coming is extremely important.
So what we did, just as an example, of course we were working out already the exhibit, but we created a mini tryout version for which we organized a quite interesting reception,
and only one teacher per school could attend. It was upon invitation, it was promoted as a VIP event, and there we handed over a documentation map of 150 pages.
We had the teacher education colleagues, not say the math researchers, but the teaching education colleagues, they prepared say five or six little documents with themes,
thematic documents, thematic things which fit in the secondary school level and which a teacher can use to address to his pupils. And so this was all in this VIP event six months before the starting of the exhibition. I think this is important, but it involves planning.
Thank you. I have a question again to Uruguay.
The laptops, every kid gets a laptop. Yes. I mean, I'm really surprised. What do they do with it? I mean, except they have this nice maybe surfer or monuments on it they can play around, but these things will break after some time. So really is that a success story, these laptops for the kids?
Well, I'm not an expert. I really don't know all the data about this. So let's say, first of all, the idea is to approach technology to students, to a population that usually does not have access to it, right?
The public school system, 100% of people in the poverty level go to the public school system and they have a laptop. And so it gives the access not only to them, but to their family. There are stories about their parents using Internet to get a job, stuff like that, that they didn't have before.
So nowadays the way of finding jobs have changed, right? And so this has approached them to just giving them a new opportunity to the family, not only to the student. The laptops are used in the classroom, of course, and the teachers use the laptops.
So there's a whole program, workshops to help teachers on how to use the laptops in their education, and how they teach, and they all have to take it to school. It's like another, in their backpack they all have their laptop and they do learn with it.
Yes, I have one question. I'm sorry I didn't get my job. So my job is to explain math to the general public. I'm not a mathematician, I'm not a teacher. So my question is, who are the people who speak to the general public in your exhibitions? And how do they learn to speak to the general public?
It's a job. I'm sorry, it's my job, so I think it's a job and it's not something that you can learn just like that. It's a real question. Okay. Just again as an example, I tell you how we did it, and this is not counted in our budget.
So what happened, every university has found students. They advertise the need for students, bachelor students, master students,
not necessarily mathematics students, but say math-enthusiastic students, who would like to collaborate and say be a guide for a class visiting the exhibit. And they got a mini, say there was a training for the trainers,
the first before every opening. And the document for this about this got more and more fine-tuned with tips and tricks. My experience would be you shouldn't be too much math educated. You should try much more a performer, like an actor,
and try to be the explorer yourself and try to take the audience with you. And this is much more effective than explaining tough mathematics, just as an example. Since the time is running out, I would propose to give the word,
just one or two minutes, to the three new panelists on board. Please try to explain the activities in your country in a few sentences, and maybe also the speciality of your imaginary country activities. Well, thank you. I am Emmanuel Royier from imaginary France.
I am very new in the project, so I cannot speak too much in the past. But the project now is to try to build an effective and efficient team in France, and to discuss the project, because this is,
okay, maybe it is not a good idea to begin with a huge exhibition. Maybe it is, so this is something we are trying to develop, and okay, every experience is very interesting to listen. Maybe just to add from my side, imaginary France recently bought a few 3D printers,
so they are like our new 3D printing department, and there are a lot of activities happening in the last year. Just to mention something else, the 3D printing department is just one person, not me. She will come tomorrow.
Everybody knows her, I guess. She will be here tomorrow. Hi, I am Helen Yu from Taiwan. I am here as a representative of Taiwan Mathematical Society. I am not a mathematician. We would like to say thank you to imaginary first,
for letting us integrate some different elements in Taiwan's exhibitions, such as Renaissance art work, zoom tools, hyper-dimensional big models, some local elements as well, like Professor Jin's bidding models from Taiwan University,
and Professor Chen's practical traditional Chinese spending using mathematical concepts from Jiao Tong University. We started last December as our very first exhibition, while Bianca was there,
so we had a very soft start and a full loop for outcome, and the exhibition for the public went to two museums in Taiwan, in Kaohsiung and Taipei,
and then it has traveled to two universities in Jiayi and Zhongyun University, a private one. I just got this information updated while I am here. It's going to ten, well the list is ferned, to ten high schools in Taiwan, of course.
The first one would be Taipei First Girls High School, and I graduated, I called it this morning, I graduated 20 years ago, and I look forward to the events in high school on campuses.
I also look forward to learn and communicate with all the team here. Thank you. Hi, I am Mattia Budin from Slovenia. I come from MATEMA, which is Institute for Popularization of Mathematics.
Last year we organized an open-air exhibition in the center of Ljubljana, which was quite a success, and this year we prepared a fashion collection using surfer images for the collection to 1617,
and of course we also have competitions as well, so thank you. Okay, so the time is really short.
Maybe I'll just ask you, should we continue with a few more questions or should we go to the coffee break? I'll ask you about your interest. I'm interested but we can also do it at the coffee break. It's hot and we are sitting here for a long time. Or should we add one more question as a compromise? Let's add one more question and then we should discuss then just informally.
So the last question here. I just want to compliment Dr. Park for arranging such a nice conference in 2014. So I was part of that and actually that imaginary part that inspired me to come here,
and I am thankful to this imaginary conference because they accepted my... Okay, now I'm also inspired by this situation. Actually I don't know that how the people from Africa or the others,
they started from zero and now they are doing a lot. So I just want to do such kind of things in my part as well. So what are the steps I should follow? From Pakistan.
I would say first find enthusiastic people. You need one or two people to go with you and start everything, because for us it was basic to get local support.
I mean, not receiving funding or everything from outside, but to do it very locally, like the national agency or whatever and the university. I would say that's the first thing, that it doesn't look like something that comes from outside, but it's something from here that we are trying to share.
It's not something from outside going to your country. Always present it as something people from your country trying to show some amazing things to people from your country. I think that you get more sponsors like that, and I think people are more interested in knowing that it's people from your country working on it.
That's just one suggestion. I think that's a very good one. You have heard that Bitul Tanvi from Turkey could not come. She was invited. I take the liberty to read a sentence she sent to you and also to me.
She says, Imagine, we are at the time when better has to be imagined in the world and in my country. I want to believe that the thousands of kids who have seen imaginary in Turkey will never be part of that crowd that kill,
nor of those that shout death penalty. I want to believe that the millions who have seen imaginary in the world will grow in a world where nationalistic, religious, racial problems stop being created and where real problems are solved.
I'm sorry for not being with all of you until next time. I think I would like to say this sentence to you. Thank you very much.