What is the strangest thing in the universe?

The London exhibition route will end this weekend while the famous South Kensington museums and institutions combine for the Great Exhibition Road Festival.

Among the series of free events that take place along the streetThree researchers affiliated to Imperial College London (ICL) will go on stage to try to answer a small question – what is the strangest thing in the universe?

For ICL research, Mariana Carrillo Gonzalez, the answer is far from our own planet.

“My object is black holes,” she says.

Black holes are regions of space where matter collapsed on itself, which means that they have such strong gravity that even light cannot escape them.

But there is a key problem with them for scientists, explains Mariana.

“We still have no idea how they work.

“We cannot observe them, we simply observe the effects of a black hole. We observe the light that goes around the black hole and we observe how it deforms space and how things are moving … But we really can’t see it because there is nothing that can escape from a black hole.

“We can prove that they are there, we have no idea what is,” she adds.

“I think it’s just a very weird thing.”

Nevertheless, Rita Ahmadi maintains that his research specialty is even more bizarre – “Quantum physicsby which I mean the physics of the subatomic particles.

“They have different behaviors from classic physics you see around you, so the rules are different,” explains the postdoctoral researcher.

These rules include that “they can be observed in two different states at the same time, which is called superposition”, while they also have an unusual problem when they try to observe them as “any interaction with a quantum system modifies the state of the quantum system”.

Rita says that such peculiarities mean “we know that the mathematics of quantum mechanics work properly, so we know that the model works … But we still cannot understand this”.

Even thus, quantum science is always considered extremely important for the future.

“My research is quantum calculation And I build devices from that even without understanding if it makes sense. “”

The other researcher who participates is Fernando Ernesto Rosas de Andraca whose field of expertise is another full of puzzles.

“I became human awareness as the strangest thing I can think of,” he says.

“Our best supposition is that consciousness is sort of generated by the brain, but most people would say that unique neurons are not aware.

“So you have these small parts that are not aware, you assemble them and they are aware and it is very strange.”

He also underlines other arguments such as “the only thing you cannot doubt is your conscience, but at the same time, conscience is this thing that no one else can see so that everyone can doubt it”.

Developing more, Fernando evokes artificial intelligence (AI), declaring it as something which he has become “completely obsessed”.

“Most people believe that Current AI systems are not aware… but I think most people agree that there are no fundamental limits to say that it will never be aware, so the question is at some point that it could become it, “he said.

“We then enter a different arena that we must worry about things such as the creation of a system that can suffer.”

The reason for these existential arguments is the festival, which seeks to celebrate science and the arts for people of all ages through activities such as insect yogaQuantum and robotic discos.

“We are always trying to find different and creative ways to explore some of the subjects we are studying at Imperial,” said James Romero, who is one of the organizers of the University Festival.

“In this case, it is difficult for researchers to modify the public conference format in a different format and to introduce a competitive element.”

Once the three researchers have presented their arguments, a vote will take place with those of the crowd deciding which phenomena should be considered the strangest of the universe.

“We thought that researchers could be too polished to be competitive, but it is clearly not the case,” said James, having listened to their arguments.

“I came from Oxford,” replied Rita. “I take the debates very seriously.”

The strangest object of the debate in the universe is free and will take place in the SIR Alexander Fleming building at the Imperial College in London at 3.30 p.m. BST on Saturday.