It is Friday at SigmaCamp. This is a bitter-sweet moment. All semilabs have produces spectacular conclusions to their week-long run. Soap bubble fights in topology, chemistry of chocolate in cooking, Big blow up in chemistry, glowing proteins in biology, interrogations in Biosensors, jamming radios in physics, and something outstanding being soldered in radiation, Rubic’s cube demonstration and calculations in Groups, and other stellar performances all over the camp.
The day involved four morning lectures by outstanding scientists. Alexander Abanov, who has started us on our soap bubble journey of today and, in the process, got a lot of campers much cleaner than they were all week. Marina Polonskaya raised many concerns about world epidemics, which spilled into a lively discussion in the Bio lab later. Our Visiting scientist Dmitry Kozakov fascinated campers and staff alike in his lecture as well. Tanya Portnaya shared her skill of turning any object into any other through the wonders of topology.
Sigma Tournament concluded with the excitement of the grand unification. Emotions ran high in the competition. The conclusion of the event showed a great sense of scientific research camaraderie among all campers.
After the tournament, we had another informal "talk with a scientist" - this time, it was Professors Moira Chas and Dennis Sullivan, both from mathematics department of Stony Brook University. Participants argued whether it is necessary to start doing math at early age to succeed (Dennis doesn't thinks so), what represents a good year for a mathematician, and why math is like mushrooms (contributed by yet another mathematician, Pavel Etingof).
The evening concluded with the concert. This show of artistic talent drew so many willing to participate that it had to be split to last two nights. Amazing musical performances were intermingled with humorous skits into a touching and happy event that lasted well into the night.