The participants of the Science Slam on stage at the TV studio in the Centre for Media and Communication at the University of Passau. From left: presenter Katrina Jordan, Professor Kai von Lewinski, Benedikt Leven, Lukas Köllnberger, Stefan Christoph, Professor Johann-Mattis List, Silvie Hilz and Jan Doria.
What do mathematics, non-fungible tokens and Peruvian bees have in common? They were all topics on stage at the Science Slam, which the University of Passau organised as part of the event series “Uni live – Campus meets City” in cooperation with the German Academy of Science and Engineering on 13 May in the TV studio of the Centre for Media and Communication. The format is about presenting research as clearly, humorously and entertainingly as possible within ten minutes. The audience decided who did this best on the evening by voting for the top three places via smartphone.
The presentations in German at a glance:
1st place: Professor Johann-Mattis List – How numerical models of juggling brought new ideas
The professor of multilingual computer linguistics has been researching how languages change for more than ten years. But List has another passion that he has been pursuing for much longer, as he reveals in his article: he has been juggling for more than 30 years. As a humanities scholar, he is something of an exception, as many jugglers have a penchant for numbers. These did not initially appeal to the linguist – until he realised what creative approaches siteswaps, i.e. juggling simulations using numbers, allow him to take.
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2nd place: Silvie Hilz, Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs): On the (legal) curiosities of a phenomenon and the power of fiction
Legal scholar Silvie Hilz is a graduate teaching and research assistant at the Chair of Public Law, European Law and Information Technology Law at the University of Passau. Her contribution also brings art and technology together. In her case, it is non-fungible tokens, digital assets that are unique and are shaking up the digital art market. She explains why this is the case and what exactly lies behind these NFTs with expert knowledge and wit:
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3rd place: Jan Doria, The Complaint of the Bee
Media scientist Jan Doria is a doctoral candidate at the Chair of Modern German Literature at the University of Passau and a fellow at the Passau Young Researchers Excellence Centre (PYREC). In his contribution, he confronts artificial intelligence with the question of resources. To do this, he devises a special scenario: he converses with a robot from the perspective of a Peruvian bee and takes it on a journey through Peru, one of the countries most affected by climate change.
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Media platforms – caught between fairness, privacy and the common good
Can media platforms be oriented towards the common good, fair and respectful of privacy at the same time? Professor Kai von Lewinski, holder of the Chair of Public Law, Media and Information Law, and his graduate teaching and research assistants Lukas Köllnberger and Benedikt Leven present initial findings from their project ‘Democracy X’. To do so, they slip into the roles of ‘Fairness’, “Privacy” and ‘Common Good’ themselves:
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On old and new conspiracy narratives
TikTok or book printing – where do conspiracy myths actually come from? Stefan Christoph gets to the bottom of this question. Christoph is a graduate teaching and research assistant at the Chair of Political Science with a focus on political theory and is also a fellow at the Passau Young Researchers Excellence Centre (PYREC). In the EU Horizon project TaCTForSED, he is researching how manifest belief in conspiracy theories arises. In his article, he travels through 250 years of conspiracy myths with the help of a one-dollar bill and an apple:
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Professor Jan H. Schumann, Vice President for Research, congratulated the participants on their successful presentations. Like Professor Werner Gamerith, Vice President for Transfer, he emphasised the importance of such formats for dialogue with society. Katrina Jordan, Head of the Communication and Marketing Division at the University of Passau, moderated the event.
This text was machine-translated from German.