second floor
Lluís Santaló Room
Statistics and probability
This room is located in one of the octagonal towers that frame the Mercader Palace, and is dedicated to the modules of probability and statistics.
In January 2023 we opened it again with new modules and a general renovation.
Who was Lluís Santaló?
Lluís A. Santaló (Girona, 1911 – Buenos Aires, 2001) was a Catalan mathematician who lived much of his life in Argentina where he went into exile in 1939 fleeing the Franco dictatorship.
In addition to being a renowned mathematician, he also stood out as a scientific communicator and expert in didactics.
The Lluís Santaló Chair of Applications of Mathematics at the University of Girona has compiled most of his work.
The MMACA is considered heir to his ideas regarding didactics and dissemination. Read, for example what he told us in the interview that the magazine L'ESCAIRE did to him in 1985:
Intuition is essential to the acquisition of conocimientos. Tiene sus peligros, and in view of ello, has existed the tendency of irla diminishyendo, bajo pretexto to logate a logical majority. Esto está muy bien on the upper level, for the systematizing mathematics. But learning is something. As well as the stomach digiere sin saber chemistry, asf nuestro intelecto asimila muchos conocimientos por saltos discontinuos, sin necesidad to follow the rigorous paths but pesados of the logic. What hay que hacer is to ayuda to the intuición and educate him so that he does not make mistakes. Hacer that the mathematics sea intuitive is the work of the maestros and teachers. Cuando a theorem bequeaths to be intuitivo, ya no se olvida más.
Some modules in this room
This hype allows you to collect a sample of 50 balls to estimate the proportion of colored balls.
We stir these balls. Are they distributed randomly? Why are they grouped together?
How can we love the stones in this photograph?
This device allows us to test our perception of the duration of 6 seconds and compare it with previous attempts.
El conegut joc “shut de box” o “tanca la caixa”
En llançar dues monedes hi ha 3 possibilitats, amb quina probabilitat cadascuna?
Stir this box and look at the coins visible through the window, do it as many times as you want. How much money would you say is in the piggy bank?
We throw a dice with two poisoned red faces. What's easier for it to come out red or not?
We also roll two dice with two poisoned faces. What is more likely to be poisoned or not?
We randomly put 8 balls in the 15 holes. Surprisingly, almost always some matches.
Three special dice, which is the winner?
Can you get to see the white ball among the blue 99,999?
During their fall, the balls, randomly, go a few times along the path to the right or the left. The result is an approximation to the well-known normal distribution.