Jarosław Drapała, Ph.D. from our Faculty gave a lecture as part of the 26th edition of the Lower Silesian Science Festival. The scientist presented a simulation of the Solar System under attack from a neutron star inhabited by an alien civilization.

In his presentation, the scientist from the Department of Computer Science and Systems Engineering referred to the novel „Dragon's Egg", written in 1980 by Robert L. Forward. The author describes the history of an intelligent civilization inhabiting the surface of a neutron star. These beings, called "Cheela" in the novel, are made of degenerate matter subjected to a force of gravity 67 billion times greater than that on the Earth's surface. They live in an iron atmosphere that extends as much as 5 centimetres above the surface.

They have a mass similar to that of a human, but it is packed in the volume similar to the size of a sesame seed. They live a million times faster than humans. For them, our 0.2 seconds is the equivalent of a whole "day." In the novel, humans make contact with "Cheela" when their neutron star passes near the solar system, at a distance about eight times the orbit of Neptune.

According to Jarosław Drapała, Ph.D., the author of the novel seems to ignore how the planets of the Solar System are going to be affected by the gravity of a neutron star (having half the mass of the Sun, but packed into a ball with a diameter of 20 km). The lecture aimed to verify whether the author of "Dragon's Egg" omitted this fact deliberately. The lecture participants learned how to simulate the Solar System from scratch in Python and what would happen if a neutron star flew by.

The 26th edition of the festival was held under the slogan "Science moves!" which referred to the Year of Nicolaus Copernicus, who "moved the Earth." On 18-22 September, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology hosted many lectures, workshops, experimental demonstrations, as well as an Oxford debate and meetings with enthusiasts of various fields of science! The enthusiastic scientists and students from Wrocław University of Science and Technology have once again prepared events for crowds of young and adult people who wanted to discover the secrets of this world, look into research laboratories and try themselves at conducting experiments.

Another researcher from our Faculty to run a lecture and a workshop as part of this year's Lower Silesian Science Festival was Ewa Frączek, Ph.D. The topic of her presentation was also related to the Year of Nicolaus Copernicus. The scientist tried to answer the questions of how big the Universe is and how to overcome huge distances in interstellar space. The participants of the workshop could construct an infinite universe and learn about its topology. She also presented other problems of topology – mathematics without numbers and its applications.