Christmas lecture featuring WoChem members!

Chemical Cyber Christmas 2.0: KI vs. KI

It was a Christmas sled ride through science, philosophy and pop culture: The „Chemical Cyber Christmas: KI vs. KI“ Show presented by Peter Reichl and Science Buster Werner Gruber together with special guest Peter Wessely and a team of chemists and computer scientists filled the entire large Carl-Auer-von Welsbach lecture hall at the faculty of Chemistry.

 

 

 

Last year, 2023, the computer scientist Peter Reichl started the collaboration with chemists for his cult event – and Werner Gruber almost set the lecture hall on fire.  In this year’s show, Christkind (yes, I looked it up, it’s English for “Christkind”) Inge Timea Dreyer was supported by another WoChem Christkind, Simone Bräuer, while Santa Wolfgang Kandioller and Krampus Alexander Bismarck also joined in again. All-rounder Clemens Schmetterer completed the team of chemists.

Pythagoras already knew that natural sciences and art go well together, which was proven again this evening, as musicians and singers of both faculties accompanied the event. Our previous dean, Bernhard Keppler, played the triangle and Donald Duck (aka Oliver Hödl) travelled to Vienna and impressively performed on the Lego piano.

He was not the only guest from Entenhausen, special guest Peter Wessely, professor for fundamental theology asked the audience “What is truth? Can science bring truth? Well, shouldn’t it be a scientific goal to bring well-being to humans?” Overall, the science of Entenhausen and the Santa science share many similarities. With this conclusion, Wessely on the hurdy-gurdy and Reichl and Schmetterer on the violin performed a latin choral “with some groove”.

Next on the agenda: Peter Gruber explained the nature of black holes: lots of vacuum, surrounded by a ring, so we can see it. Of course, he brought his own black hole and, as a fan of the Christkind (go WoChem!), he banned one of the Santa’s into the event horizon, namely Peter Reichl. Everyone was shocked and together the Christkind’s and Santa’s from Chemistry defeated Physics and turned the black hole into a white hole. Peter Reichl returned and the show continued with the topic: AI (KI in German).

Leticia Gonzales, professor in Theoretical Chemistry, specialist for computer science and chemistry, beat the KI “Dr. Nim” with the help of a chemical experiment using KI (potassium iodide).

In the meantime, bistable Vanille-KI-pferl were baked and eaten on stage, supported by music from Clemens Schmetter “Die bistabile Weihnachtskippstufe”. Now, the audience got to participate and build paper planes to win Christmas trees, a black hole to go or books by Reichl and Gruber. Vice-dean Lothar Brecker and previous dean Bernhard Keppler happily joined the Punsch in the courtyard, as no damage to the equipment was noted in 2024. We are looking forward to the anniversary show in 2025.