Lange Nacht der Forschung 2024

24th of May, 5 o'clock, the doors open and the general public invades the central building of the University of Vienna ready for the "Long Night of Research", where researchers prepare activities to showcase their work.

The event was a great success and we were there with an exhibition on 'Biomathematics'.

It was fulfilling to see how many people were curious about mathematics, our research, and willing to take part in our activities. We had people of all ages. We had very keen parents who wanted to play our simulations with their kids; kids excited with our card game (one came even twice); an elderly lady who did not have enough with our videos and demanded that we show her the equations (and they were there to see); school students with doubts about which university degree to go for; young people inquiring about how large our team is, how long does a project take, how do we work with biologists;...

It was tiring and after 5 hours I could barely talk, but the people who came to visit us made it very rewarding. We were the only station in the central building with a mathematical theme and we were there for all of those that are curious about mathematics and that want to learn about what mathematicians do.

We were competing for attention against many other stations (including the one next to us that had video games). However, we were busy: at moments there were so many people that we could not tend to everyone.

The University of Vienna was great in offering us support: they organised t-shirts, name badges, food and drink vouchers, poster printing and design, and all the equipment that we needed. The set-up was wonderful, we were in the Senat Saal. Pictures below!

You can learn more about our team and explore the activities that we offered in this link (you can play with simulations; see highlights of our research; and the rules of the card game for epidemic dynamics).