More than 400 school students enjoyed seeing “Primos entre sí”, an amusing and ingenious theatrical play that seeks to awake the interest in Mathematics. The event was held at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (Santiago) and at Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María (Valparaíso) on the 5th of August and on the 31th of December respectively. It was organized by Capde Millenium Nucleus Center for the Analysis of Partial Differential Equations as part of its outreach activities.
“We aim to encourage young people to approach to science, which often is not an easy task”, remarked Alexander Quaass, researcher at Capde.
The comedy represents daily situations through the sharp dialogues of a couple. “The performance was very realistic. The attitude of the mathematician while lecturing was very appropriately depicted”, said Manuel del Pino, main researcher at Capde and the Center for Mathematical Modeling (CMM) of Universidad de Chile.
The play highlights the importance of mathematics nowadays. For instance, the strong influence the information theory developed by Claude Shannon has on technology. “Students understood the ideas very well. In classrooms sometimes it is more difficult to explain and keep their attention”, stated José Peña Godoy, teacher at Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna, one of the eight schools that attended the event.
The screenplay was an adaptation of the one under the same name written by Omar Gil, mathematician from Universidad de la República in Uruguay who also studied theater. His first article came on the occasion of the World Championship in 2006, came under the name” Mathematically, we have a chance”: “I was dissatisfied with the result. So, I wrote to prove why Uruguay had to be classified”.
The main point in this version was the exchange of the roles: she is the mathematician, instead of her cousin. Thus, it is intended to stress the women´s talent for science.
After the play in Santiago, Gil, who had already performed the play more than 20 times, met Estefanía Aedo, director of this adaptation. They both talked about teaching strategies that could be included in future shows of “Primos entre sí”.
“We want to open the world of theater to all the society, including those who have fewer opportunities to access this kind of art”, pointed out Estefanía Aedo.
