NPI at Colours of Ostrava

NPI was presented for the first time from 18th to 21st July within the Science Garden at this year's edition of the biggest Czech open-air music festival Colours of Ostrava 2018. This happened under the activities of the physics popularization group IPPOG CR, which includes employees and students of Charles University (FMP CU), the Czech Technical University in Prague (FNSPE CTU), the Silesian University in Opava (FPS SU) and Palacký University in Olomouc (JLO PU).

A group of 19 people from these five scientific institutions, in cooperation with the Ostrava´s Science Center World of Techniques in Dolní Vítkovice, realized a rich program aimed at bringing physicists closer to the general public. The program was divided into two parts: stalls with interesting physical experiments and a small stage with lectures on nuclear and particle physics and quantum physics in general. The base was provided by the World of Techniques, which provided ten accreditations, a place on the stands, free access to its garden for the festival participants, and several of the performers.

The event was attended by Vasily Mikhaylov (NPI), who, with the help of special glasses, showed a new presentation of "virtual reality" processed by the NPI department of radiation dosimetry from the recording of a 360-degree camera in the gondola of the Fik 3 baloon during its flight into the stratosphere, he was explaining the NPI work and other questions of nuclear physics. People with serious interest also got our brochures Journey to the Core of Matter. A new NPI poster, originally created for this year's Science Fair, was unveiled too. Guests were constantly curious about the stand, since noon to evening.

Science Garden was a part of Meltingpot +, an accompanying program of the Colours of Ostrava. It was probably the first attempt to popularize nuclear and particle physics for such a massive event: this year's Colours attended around 50,000 people.