Two members of the group ‘Big Van, scientifics on wheels’, the particle physicist Javier Santaolalla and the mathematician Santi García, gives a colloquium at the Institute of Corpuscular Physics (IFIC, CSIC-UV) where they exhibit their particular way of expanding science through humour. The colloquium is part of the Severo Ocho programme of IFIC as centre of excellence and it takes place on Wednesday 29 March at 12:30h in the Salón de Actos of the Cabecera Building of Parc Científic.
The group ‘Big Van, scientifics on wheels’ was created in the first edition of the Scientific Monologue Contest ‘Famelab’ (2013), an initiative that is organised in Spain by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT) and the British Council. The finalists of this first edition decided to create a group to tour around offering humour monologues about disciplines such as particle physics or genetics, mathematics, chemistry, biology and engineering.
More than 100,000 spectators are keen on their monologues for two years and a half. They have to recruit more members and take into account more subjects and procedures. Now, the scientifics of ‘Big Van’ perform in theatres (‘Galileo Superstar’) and they are interviewed in many debates. Apart from that, they have just published best-sellers of scientific dissemination, collaborated with media (‘Órbita Laika’ and ‘Tips’ in La 2 of TVE; ‘La Ventana’, in Cadena SER; ‘Telecienciario’, in the paper El Mundo…) and become successful youtubers.
Furthermore, they give workshops and masterclasses about communication and scientific dissemination for researchers. They will introduce these activities in the Institute of Corpuscular Physics (IFIC), mixed centre of Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and the Universitat de València on Wednesday 29 March at 12:30h in the Salón de Actos of the Cabecera Building of the Parc Científic of the UV (entry calle Catedrático José Beltrán, 2. Parada TVV, Línea 4). The colloquium is focused on the new channels for the scientific dissemination such as the audiovisual format or the scenic performance, and will end up with a performance called ‘Física vs Matemáticas’. Free entry subject to available seating.
Javier Santaolalla Camino (Burgos, 1982) is superior engineer in Telecommunications, physicist and PhD in Particle Physics. He carried out his research work in the French Space Agency working for Galileo project. And he also worked in the CMS of the LHC experiment at CERN (Geneva), where he made his thesis with the CIEMAT grant. He is one of the founders of ‘Big Van, scientifics on wheels’ and acts as monologuist, writer, communicator, consultant and community manager. He has a YouTube channel of physics called ‘Date Un Voltio‘ and won the VII Contest of Dissemination of CPAN. He is also the host of the news ‘Telecienciario’ for webpage of El Mundo and writer of the scientific dissemination book ‘El bosón de Higgs no te va a hacer la cama’.
José Santiago García Cremades (Molina de Segura, Murcia, 1985) is mathematician and scientific communicator. He is professor in the Miguel Hernández University of Elche and member of ‘Big Van, scientifics on wheels’ with more than 100 performances in theatres, high schools, congresses and bars. He is director and talk-show host on Radio 5 and Onda Regional of Murcia. From July 2015, he collaborates weekly in a section of ‘Las Mañanas de RNE’ with more than a million listeners. He takes part in several projects of scientific divulgation such as CienciaXplora, Naukasy, two weakly publications in the paper El Mundo, ‘Protoon’ (cartoon of graphic humour about scientific hot news), and the Telecienciario with Javier Santaolalla. He is collaborator of the programme of La 2 ‘Órbita Laia: La Nueva Generación’, with the histories of science section.
The Institute of Corpuscular Physics is one of the three centres of excellence Severo Ochoa of the Region of Valencia, the unique addressed to Physics. Apart from its research career in which IFIC participates in some leading experiments on an international level. This institution also carries out some dissemination activities such as guided tours to the centre (868 visitors in 2016), talks in secondary high schools of the Region of Valencia (29 talks in 2016), participation in the international masterclass of particle physics (150 students of 55 high schools in 2017) and in the Open Day Session of Parc Científic ‘Exponencia’, training courses for teachers of secondary schools and collaboration with the fair ‘Exhibition’, among others.
Information:
http://indico.ific.uv.es/indico/conferencedisplay.py?confid=2900