On Saturday, June 10, took place the 16a Festa de la ciència in the Rambla of Prim of Barcelona. More than 6000 assistants came to this science dissemination event organized by the Ajuntament of Barcelona and counted with 176 activities and engaged more than 150 city entities related to science and dissemination. As last year, our Fusion Group participated to disseminate Fusion technology among the event participants.
Dissemination is one of the main ways to reach society and try to raise awareness of the relevance of research and science development. Our Fusion Group is committed to sharing its advances in fusion science and technology by different means, for example, through the blog that you are visiting or through perhaps more exciting live dissemination activities.
Barcelona is a well-known hub for scientific research and Information Technology (IT). Every year several activities are organized in order to make science more tangible for society. The “Festa de la Ciència” is one of the major science activities organized. It is especially designed for children and people who want to have a good time while getting a flavor of the status of fundamental and cutting-edge science topics. Talks, experiments and games are offered during two full days covering a whole weekend. The venue changes every year. Last year it was held in la Rambla del Raval (see previous blog post here), while this year it has been hosted in la Rambla Prim. This is a party to celebrate research and science and it is for everyone; it does not matter what your scientific background, culture, age, origin, religion or gender are if you would like to participate.
As mentioned above, this year the Fusion Group has participated for the second consecutive year in this event. Given the relevance of fusion research during these two last years with several fusion records and plenty of worldwide media attention, the organizers invited us for a radio interview and a dissemination talk in Copernic scenario, one of the 25 spaces developed at Rambla of Prim in the Besòs-Maresme neighborhood of the Sant Martí district. The activities were carried out by Fusion Group members Dani Gallart (interview) and Xavier Sáez (talk).
Ràdio Farró interviewed Dani Gallart within their program Natural Phenomena (Fenòmens Naturals). The questions covered various hot topics in fusion, such as the latest fusion records and the basic mechanisms to achieve steady fusion reactions. It also shed some light on the difference between fusion and fission and also gave room for personal opinion on a range of topics. All in all, it was an enjoyable interview giving an overview of fusion technology for people who are not familiar with it. If you want to hear the full interview click here.
Xavier Sáez presented the talk “La fusió nuclear está de moda!”, which aroused great interest from the audience since it began by recalling the main news in recent months related to this emerging field. To go on, he explained the fundamentals of nuclear fusion from the physical point of view and showed the importance of fusion energy generation from the point of view of the economic advantage and environmental solution to palliate the effects of oil and carbon-based energies. He also explained the history of nuclear fusion, the next planned steps, and the role of our group in nuclear fusion development.
Overall, our contributions had a good reception from the public and we had a great time talking to the audience. Many thanks to the organizers for the nice event and opportunity to disseminate our research!
