On Thursday, 15 January 2026, Simone Chiocchetti visited students of the 11. Klasse at Kreuzgasse Gymnasium in Cologne for an interactive meeting on computational physics, engineering, and applied mathematics, with a particular focus on the numerical simulation of fluids.
The discussion covered a wide range of topics: from the mathematical foundations of partial differential equations and their discretization, to real-world applications in civil engineering, astrophysics, and industrial design. Students learned how researchers model phenomena ranging from river floods and debris flows to turbulence in aerodynamics, and why such simulations matter when experiments are expensive, dangerous, or simply impossible. The conversation also touched on the practical challenges of supercomputing, multiphase flows one can observe in a cup of coffee, and the surprising behavior of steel structures under large deformations.
The students participated actively throughout, contributing thoughtful questions on subjects including chaos in planetary orbits and its connection to fluid turbulence, the multiscale nature of turbulent flows, and the computational tricks needed to make large simulations feasible.
Many thanks to the students for their engagement and curiosity, and to Markus Klein, their physics teacher, for contributing to organizing the event.
This activity is funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship MoMeNTUM (grant agreement No. 101109532).