Noticias en español
A group of secondary school students came to know closely the activity carried out at the Center for Mathematical Modeling (CMM). Thus, 20 children from Liceo Politécnico de Talagante share stage with academics and researchers of CMM. During the visit, which took place on 18th August 2014, these students from areas such as Accountancy, Electricity and Food Sciences had a tour through the building and heard carefully the words of five CMM members.
“Children have remarkable fresh brains because they are who raise the great questions and are looking forward to creating”, highlighted the National Award for Science 2003, Carlos Conca. During his talk, he showed the portable ultrasound developed at the Center. The students enjoyed testing this machine with their own hands while using, for instance, its glasses.
The starting point of the visit was the Modeling in Scientific Imaging and Visualization Laboratory (Motiv), where they learnt about digital image processing techniques such as enhancement and morphing. They could also see the neuronavigator owned by the Laboratory, which is used for assisting in neurosurgery.
“Many of my doubts have been clarified here. I understand now what is mathematical modeling and how much mathematics influences everything”, emphasized the student Carlos Sotelo.
“What like most was the talk about mining. I did not know that mathematics is such a practical field”, said the student María Toledo when Raúl Gormaz explained the projects carried out at the Mathematical Modeling in Mining and Metallurgy (LM4) with mine tailings.
Afterwards, Andrés Aravena, from the Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Mathematics of the Genome (Mathomics), encouraged the students “to make science, since it is possible nowadays to research from home. Information and data are available in computers. Technology has become more democratic”.
The students finished the visit at the National Laboratory for High Performance Computing (NLHPC), where they discovered that its supercomputer Leftraru can be faster than 25.000 notebooks working at the same time.
“Due to their expertise in mathematics and good grades, these students are highly interested in the work done at CMM”, pointed out Lucia Benavente, principal of the school.
