Knowing everything

Recently, the invitation for Meet the Professor popped into my inbox again. In this programme, professors and senior lecturers give a lesson about their field to upper primary school pupils at a school in Delft. The idea is to get children excited about science from an early age. You give a few keywords in advance so the children can do some preparation, and you are also invited to talk a bit about your hobbies. After all, professors have hobbies too.

Would I be singing something as well

I have taken part twice now. Not in my academic robe, but in my everyday clothes – I don’t want to create unnecessary distance. The first lesson was about the number π. I started by asking who had heard of TU Delft (a few hands went up), and who knew what a professor actually does all day (indeed, thinking very hard). Many of the children already knew about π, and one child could even recite 10 decimal places from memory. I then explained why the number is so useful. Around 200 BC the ancient Greeks already knew how to use it to calculate the circumference of the Earth! After I showed them how, something interesting happened. Confronted with such a large number (40,000 kilometres), one of the children asked whether one could also calculate how big the universe is. A great question, and I did my best to give as good an answer as possible. My lesson on π ended there – the children couldn’t stop asking questions. The discussion went in all directions. At the end I asked who wanted to be a professor too. All of them did, because a professor is someone who knows everything.

The second time, at a different school, the topic was infinity. I had barely begun when two girls in the front row raised their hands. Would I be singing something as well, since I had listed ‘opera singing’ as one of my hobbies? I asked if they liked opera. They nodded so enthusiastically that I promised to sing something after the lesson – on the condition that everyone paid close attention during the class. Infinity is a marvellous concept. At Hilbert’s hotel, which has infinitely many rooms, there is always space for a new guest. If the hotel is full, you simply ask everyone to move up one room. That way, room one becomes free. If everyone moves from room N to room 2N, you even free up an infinite number of rooms. After the lesson, as I was chatting with the teacher, the two girls came up to me. Wasn’t I going to sing something? So I did – Leporello’s aria, with a YouTube karaoke track for accompaniment. My most successful math lecture so far!

The children’s enthusiasm and unfiltered curiosity is wonderful to witness, and it deserves a nurturing environment. But the quality of education is under increasing pressure: declining core skills, a growing teacher shortage, and now severe budget cuts to higher education. On the day this column is published, TU Delft is on strike. And I will be doing my very best to once again give a wonderful lesson this year to our young scientists.