Q-SORT at the Researchers’Night 2020

On 27 September 2020, Q-SORT was at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia to participate in the “European Researchers’ Night” event which took place online due to the Covid19 restrictions.

The event aimed to create opportunities for researchers and citizens to interact, thereby spreading scientific culture and a basic understanding of the Q-SORT project  in an informal and stimulating context.

The European Researchers’ Night takes place annually with the aim of bringing researchers closer to the general public. It is one of the most well-known public engagement events in Europe and is hosted in universities, science centres, museums and research institutes. European Researchers’ Night has been running for more than 10 years and events have taken place in almost 300 locations around Europe. By the end of 2017, the European Commission will have invested in excess of €40 million worth of funding in this initiative.

Event description

Let’s free the electrons !!!

27 November 2020 – from 11:45 to 12:15

Lesson / Presentation (recorded)

In our everyday lives we are used to seeing things with our eyes. It is intuitive that light comes from objects and arrives to our perception. The more curious among us might have tried playing with a magnifying glass or a microscope to magnify objects. And yet there is a limit to how much one can see with one’s eyes or even a microscope. Researchers have invented a new way of seeing things using electrons. Many understand electrons as being those little guys that spin around a nucleus. Researchers have learned to detach electrons from the atom and throw them as if they were rays of light, in order to make ‘photographs’. They do this using the electron microscope. Thanks to these new raise we are today able to see minuscule objects: the atoms themselves.

This gives us the unique opportunity to see with our own eyes the fundamental brick at the base of everything that surrounds us. An image that is deserving of deeper reflections.

Initiative curated in collaboration with the Q-SORT (www.QSORT.eu), financed by the European Union through Horizon  2020 Research and Innovation Programme, Grant Agreement No 766970 Q-SORT (H2020-FETOPEN-1-2016-2017).”

The Space Reel by Q-SORT

Q-SORT’s Space Reel is a freeform visual poem that explores the cosmic and psychedelic beauty of electron microscopy images. Using the universal language of images, the film shows some of the concepts Vincenzo Grillo talks about in his speech.

www.qsort.eu/q-sort-space-reel/

Initiative curated in collaboration with the Q-SORT project, funded by the European Union under the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program, Grant Agreement No 766970 Q-SORT (H2020-FETOPEN-1-2016-2017)