Sydney Science Festival 2016

Overview

If you're even remotely tuned in with the world around, you'll have a skerrick of curiosity as to how it all works. Sydney Science Festival is your best opportunity to get down to the nuts and bolts of our big wide world and beyond, from 3D printing to subatomic particles and into deep space — and have a few beers with real scientists while you're at it.

To find out how makers across New South Wales are drawing inspiration from science, get along to the Sydney Mini Maker Faire at the Powerhouse on August 13-14. Expect to meet game-changing, 3D-printing designers, genius coders and, hopefully, a return of last year's interactive brain light.

The festival's rock star exhibition is Collider. It'll take you on a behind-the-scenes journey through the discovery of the 'God particle', the subatomic particle also known as Higgs boson that is responsible for giving mass to matter. You'll learn all about the Large Hadron Collider, a 27-kilometre long ring of magnets with superconducting powers that can force particle beams travelling nearly at the speed of light to crash into each other. Another exhibition worth checking out will be Winning Sky Photos, showcasing top-notch entries in the David Malin Awards, an annual photo comp for amateur photographers and astronomers.

The talks component of the program is headlined by celebrated professor Brian Cox's 'A Journey Into Deep Space'. He'll be delving into questions we've been trying, unsuccessfully, to answer for thousands of years, like are there aliens? What happened before the Big Bang? How did life start? Meanwhile, at 'Biohacking: Why should we care?' Genspace co-founder and director Dr. Ellen Jorgensen will be chatting with a bunch of experts.

Then, at BAHFest, a series of wannabe scientific theorists will compete for glory, presenting their 'Bad Ad Hoc Hypotheses' to a panel of scientists, hosted by Alex Lee (The Chaser's Election Desk and The Checkout) and featuring science-loving favourite Dr Karl Kruszelnicki.

Opening night shenanigans will take place at the Powerhouse on Thursday, August 11, with a free, adults-only launch party, hosted by Lisa Harvey-Smith, starring festival ambassador Dr. Alan Duffy and filled with music, performances and presentations.

Image: Greg Rakozy.