Andrew Raymond, a 13-year-old student from Mount Logan Middle School, learned on Friday night that there are three kinds of zombies. His favorite are cooperative zombies — the ones that would wreak the most havoc on the human race if a zombie apocalypse ever took place.
Raymond was one of hundreds of people who attended the lecture “Mathematics and the Life-Impaired: How the Theory of Disease Predicts the Zombie Apocalypse.” It was given by Jim Powell, a professor of mathematics and biology at Utah State University. The lecture was part of the Science Unwrapped’s “End of the World (as We Know It)” lecture series.
Powell explained mathematical equations that could be used to predict the outcome of a zombie apocalypse. Powell described three types of zombies: cooperative zombies, fast zombies and zombies who starved slowly. In a Cache Valley population of 100,000 people, 70,000 people would survive an apocalypse of fast zombies and slowly starving zombies, Powell said. In the scenario of a group of cooperative zombies, only 5,000 people would survive, according to the equation Powell explained during the presentation.
Powell also lectured about equations used by the Center for Disease Control for vaccination requirement rate. Powell said if 80 percent of people were vaccinated, there would be no zombie apocalypse.
“He was entertaining. He made the math easy to understand and made it accessible to a regular audience,” said undergraduate student Allison Hendrix.
The lecture marked Science Unwrapped’s third anniversary. “Mathematics and the Life-Impaired: How the Theory of Disease Predicts the Zombie Apocalypse” was the program’s 25th lecture.
“When we started this we weren’t sure if it would survive as long or be as successful as it has,” said Shane Larson, chair of the Science Unwrapped committee and an assistant professor in the USU physics department. “We have standing-room-only crowds very often. We’ve never had less than 200 people at one of these events.”
Larson said almost 8,000 people have attended Science Unwrapped events since its start in 2009.
Science Unwrapped was created because of the United States’ declining science literacy rate, Larson said. The program is a way to be involved in the nation’s effort to raise awareness about the importance of science, he said.
“There has been this longstanding effort between a lot of us in the scientific community to help figure out ways to boost science literacy, to help people understand why it’s important to fund science and be aware of science,” Larson said. “This was just an idea we had kicking around, and we started it and it worked.”
After Powell finished his lecture, the audience was free to look at student-run booths designed to teach people about science and math.
David Tate, the student senator of mathematics, ran the “Juggling by Numbers” booth. He juggled while elementary school students watched and listened to him explain the numerical pattern of juggling – the height of each throw corresponds with a number, and the pattern of numbers determines what juggling trick will be performed, Tate said.
“I’ve never done Science Unwrapped before,” Tate said. “I get nervous performing for people. I usually do it for myself. I do enjoy being with people and I enjoy teaching.”
Jameson Hardy, a mathematical education major running a booth called, “Zombie Poker: How Long Can You Survive?” said he created the game at the booth specifically for Science Unwrapped. However, he could see himself using it to educate students about statistics and probability in his own classroom someday.
“In the three years we’ve done it, we’ve almost had 8,000 people come to these events. For a town the size of Cache Valley, that’s awesome,” Larson said. “We’ve been enormously successful. The thing that it tells us is that there’s really a need for people to have access to science that is hands on.”
Raymond said this was his second Science Unwrapped lecture. He said he enjoys the activities, and one day wants to become a robotics scientist.
“I was interested in science a really long time ago, this is just basically going for fun,” he said.
Larson said one-third of the people coming to Science Unwrapped events were kindergarten to 12th-grade students, one-third were faculty and university students and one-third were people from the community.
“We’re going to keep doing it. As long as people come, we’ll be here,” Larson said.
David Thomas, Brie Geller, Mackinzie Hamilton, Marissa Shields, Ashley Howell and Danielle Manley contributed to this report.
No comments:
Post a Comment