In Geneva, the Night of the Flag, which took place on Saturday and Sunday in the Parc Perle du Lac, reconnected with its audience after 4 years of absence. The event was held twice a year last time in 2018. The health crisis was better than the 2020 edition.

People and scientists have greatly missed Science Night, and the reunion was a real treat for everyone, noted Sunday Lawrence Isalien Stahl-Gretsch, president of the Museum of the History of Science. Attendance was clearly identical to 2018.

This year, the theme of the event was counter-intuitive. Schrödinger’s cat was the mascot. The cat is the star of a thought experiment conducted by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935 to illustrate the complexity of the uncertainty principle associated with quantum mechanics.

Erwin Schrödinger invites us to imagine a cat in a closed box. To an outside observer, it is impossible to determine whether an animal is alive or dead. We can only determine the condition of the cat after opening the box. So the animal, in its closed box, is alive and dead.

This scientific night was also sponsored by Galileo, who investigated the heliocentric hypothesis of Copernicus. Giordano Bruno has also championed the idea. The Dominican friar had paid for it with his life, and it ended up on the line. Galileo, he had retreated in time to escape his conviction for heresy.

Galileo was honored at the event by presenting several experiments conducted by the famous Pisan scientist, notably one dedicated to falling corpses. The audience was also able to discover the essential role of wild bees, mysteries of mushrooms or even how to build a wooden bridge without nails or screws.

The Department of Geosciences at the University of Geneva (UNIGE), for its part, offered to discover some issues related to the environment through leisure activities. By riding a bike, for example, one can benchmark themselves against the 2050 goals of the Swiss Energy Strategy.

mf, ats