"Delta Phi"
Optical phenomenon: caustics. The surface of this object resembles that of moving water. Illuminated from above, it reflects incoming light rays in various…
2x2 Puzzle
Four cubes fit together in the box. Each cube has 4 quarter-pictures, one on each of 4 faces. The other two faces are transparent, BUT they look onto the…
3D-Shadows
Shadows gain depth. Illuminated with red and green light, a tetrahedron casts a red and a green shadow on the screen. Viewed through glasses with red and…
847 Compass needles
Magnetic Domains. There are 847 compass needles attached to a disc. Because they are so close together, they influence each other. With a magnet, the compass…
A Slice of Turbulence
by Ned Kahn If the crest of the wave collapsed over the surfer off Hawaii and he could bring home a slice of salami from it, he would have the original to the…
Additive Color Mixing
Mixing light colors. Play with red, green, and blue light, and with their brightness. When overlapped and adjusted optimally, red, green, and blue produce…
Adhesive Air
Coandă Effect: How shape, position, and surface influence airflow. The Coandă effect occurs when fluid or gas jets deviate from their original flow direction…
Aeolian Landscape
«Aeolian Landscapes» Wind shapes the landscape, just like water and ice do. As the wind sweeps over the sand surface, dune-like ripples form. When their…
After Image
Seeing the void. A powerful flash of light triggers a photochemical process on our retina. This process lasts longer than the brief light flash that…
Air Bubbles
Like dolphins: forming rings that rise. By pumping air into the glass tube filled with water, air bubbles rise. They ascend vertically. Often in a straight…
Air lift
The vacuum makes the difference. When the ball moves up the tube, the airflow is directed in such a way that a vacuum is created. How must it be directed for…
Air Mirror
Sit comfortably and check the stripy view at the end of the road. Now heat up the road. (A solid steel plate rapidly heats to 100°, warming the dark sand of…
Alike and unalike
The illusion of inequality. Two identical wooden arcs lie side by side. The inner one appears larger, but it isn’t. For circular arcs, the outer edge is…
All Triangels are the same
Central projection: Using various triangular shapes to cast congruent shadows onto a patterned wall with equilateral triangles.
Ambiguous Figures
Clearly ambiguous. One object, two forms: “Necker cubes” belong to the category of ambiguously perceivable objects. Perceiving spatial dimensions and depth:…
Anamorphic Images: Cone
On a flat surface the images are distorted beyond recognition – a peculiar visual code requiring a special key. Slip the square sheets over the reflective…
Angled Mirrors
Many polygons. Two mirrors positioned around an axis at various angles: a simple way to create shapes with many sides (polygons). At certain angles,…
Anti Gravity Mirror
Half a person becomes whole. Reflect the right half of the body, and there you have it: a complete person. It’s fascinating to watch them move. Can you manage…
Ants
Observe the bustling activity of ants as they move through a large enclosure performing various tasks. This is made of transparent material so that visitors…
Ascending magma
«Intrusion» Volcano in cross-section: This is what happens beneath its vent. What looks like magma is actually air-blown glass particles. They behave like a…
Aurora
A different kind of reflection. Colored filters in a mirror: why don’t we simply see their exact image? The surface of the mirror is rough. Restless,…
Back View
Step forward to check how neat (or not….) your bum really looks in those cool new jeans: every clothes’ store should have this back-view booth!
Ball in a Bowl
Particle accelerator. Hula hoop meets spinning coins: balls orbit inside the sphere. Circular movements propel the two balls onto their orbits within the…
Shorter path = faster to the goal? A question that occupied the best mathematicians three hundred years ago. This competition compares two parallel tracks,…
Ball on water-beam
Drawn to the jet. Table tennis balls float on a water fountain: how is that possible? The ball doesn’t stay exactly in the center of the jet. It rotates…
Ball sorting machine
Here, "touching wood" is taken literally. Pierre Andrès has not designed his creations to be looked at, but rather to be shifted and manipulated, leveraged and…
Banana
If you place a blue filter exactly on the yellow banana, the banana appears green - logical, isn't it? A larger blue filter that also covers the white…
Barium
4.4 trillion atoms = about 1 gram. In the display case, you see an ampoule filled with argon gas and – seven barium pieces. Each of these small pieces…
Bathroom Mirror
Sit quietly in front of the mirror and look closely at your face: sketch the outline, mouth, nose and eyes as you see them in the mirror. Now look at your…
Bell in a Vacuum
This is what astronauts hear on the moon. How do sound waves spread in airless, windless space? Not at all. When astronauts communicate with knocking…
Benham's Disc
Benham’s disks: seeing colors where there are none. The disks display patterns with black and white shapes. When these disks rotate, we perceive colors. When…
Bent Laser Light
Diffraction patterns: when light is deflected. When light encounters a fine structure (like a hair), it is deflected by it. Here, laser light is deflected as…
Bernoulli’s Elephant
by Paul Spooner 2016, Cabaret Mechanical Theatre, England What is a pink elephant doing at Technorama? The Bernoulli Elephant is a work by the artist Paul…
Bicycle Wheel Gyroscope
Speed and Balance. Not so easy: Riding a bike slowly while maintaining balance. Much easier: Pedaling fast and staying steady. But why? Quickly spinning…
Blind Juggler
The Blind Juggler can juggle up to four balls at the same time without any sensors.
Blind Spot
Wasn’t there an orange? Stare at the apple with one eye and slowly bring it closer to your face. At a certain distance, the orange beside the apple seems to…
Blood Vessels of the Eye
Recognizing what we normally never see. In front of (not behind) the retina of our eye, there is a network of blood vessels. We don’t see it. Our brain…
Blue Lightning Tube
by Wayne Strattman Somewhat oversized, but in principle a transparent fluorescent tube with an unorthodox gas filling. It is under relatively high pressure so…
Bouncing (Steel) Ball
Ping-ping, not ping-pong. When a ping-pong ball drops onto the table, its sound is unmistakable. A tapping noise that grows quicker and quicker. This happens…
Captured Cloud
Swirling Fog. Step into the cloud. It’s pleasantly cool inside. Will you find your way out? In the two half-shells, nozzles spray fine water droplets. It's…
Carousel of Faces
As you carefully adjust the light level, the mirror becomes a window onto a well-known face. Balance illumination with reflection, and merge your face with a…
Cartesian Diver
Sinks / Doesn’t Sink Sometimes called a “Cartesian diver,” this hollow body is partially filled with water and air. Depending on the pressure in the liquid,…
Caught quickly
React quickly and catch the sticks! Measure your reaction time on two falling sticks: Catch them as soon as they fall. The markings show you your reaction…
Chance Happenings
Capturing randomness – with dice. Four faces of these dice are white. The other two faces show a red circle. After each roll, the dice with the red circle…
Changeable Weather
How do you determine the average value of numerous individual measurements? Here, the average monthly rainfall can be determined experimentally.
Changing Sides
A wire cube rotates in front of a mirror. If you squint one eye and fix a front corner of the wire cube, you see a certain direction of rotation. If you now…
Chaotic fountain
«Chaotic (or Turbulent) Fountain» Direction of rotation: impossible to predict. The twelve containers of this fountain wheel are all the same size. They are…
Chaotic Pendulum
Momentum and Joint A long, light pendulum connected to a small but heavy pendulum. A push on the knob sets the entire system in motion. The effect on the…
Chaotic Pendulum II
Momentum and Reversal Three smaller pendulums attached to a large rotating arm. A push on the knob sets the entire system in motion. The effect on the three…
Christmas Balls
Round shapes, angular gaps. The spheres are indeed round, despite the triangular gaps between them. Can this really be? If a sphere is missing in the…
Circling Wave Umbrella
«Circling Wave Umbrella» The fabric hangs limply from the pole. When set in rotation, it ripples, much like women's skirts during a folk dance. A small hole…
Circular Deformations
Patterns come to life. Ovals form around stationary circles. Funnels emerge, cones rise. Curved lines perform a serpentine dance. Images that, when observed…
Geometric shapes come to life. What we think we see in the shapes of spinning discs! Ovals wrapping around stationary circles. Cones wobbling in a…
Cloud Chamber
Particle Zoo: Ever seen a muon? Electrically charged particles are not directly visible, even in the diffusion cloud chamber. However, alpha and beta…
Cloud Rings
A cloud maker like no other! The large basin is filled with water mist. Pressing the lid with a hole causes a mist column to rise in the center – up to seven…
Coarse or Fine
Texture and perception. One hand strokes coarse sandpaper. The other hand strokes fine sandpaper. Then both hands simultaneously stroke sandpaper with medium…
Cold and Warm Light Mirrors
Without protection, the lamp in a slide projector would melt the valuable slide. How can you protect the slides? This exhibit shows the effect of different…
Cold Test
Four degrees – only relatively cold. Touch the metal rods, please. Yes, they’re really cold. Almost painful. How painful is this brief contact? This…
Color Contrast
How blue blue can be. Two color squares, one lighter, one darker. Are we sure? As different as we perceive them, they actually share the same color. We…
Colour Corner
Set two mirrors at 62°, cap them with a third, and mount a lightbox at their apex. This kaleidoscopic art piece is another Caspar Schwabe creation: “2%…
Colour Removal
The prism has a splitting effect. White light is composed of spectral colors. The prism separates it so that they become visible. Color filters only let…
Colour Reversal
A red tree turns entirely green. Why does the tree change its color? If we fix our gaze on an image long enough, the color receptors (cones) in our eyes lose…
Coloured Shadows
Three lights for shadows in six colors. Red. Green. Blue. Three lamps illuminate the white background. On it, we see six shadows of different colors: a…
Confused Sea
Master of the Winds. Play the god of winds – Aeolus would be thrilled. The half-sphere of plexiglass is filled with water. The strength of the rotating fan…
Conic Sections with Laser
Ellipse, parabola, hyperbolic branch, or hyperbolic arm: Cross-sections of a plane through a geometric body. In this case, a cone. A laser beam circling the…
Convection cells
«Convection Cells» Warm air rises, as does warm liquid. This forces air and moisture to descend in other areas. The structures that form resemble cauliflower…
Coriolis Fountain
Water with a surprising twist. If we spin around while holding the garden hose, the water jet seems to "bend." The jet follows the hose. The jet follows the…
Corner Reflector
Cat’s eye = reflector. In the headlight’s beam, it lights up, clearly visible to the driver: the “cat’s eye.” The pedestrian next to it barely notices it,…
Corpuscles of the Eye
Checking the pulse! Red blood cells absorb blue light particularly well. When we look into a blue light source, we see pulsating dots. A whole network of…
Counter-Balanced Pendulum
This is how a pendulum swings on the Moon. We cannot change Earth’s gravity. But we can simulate a change in gravitational force by adjusting a movable weight…
Coupled magnetic sculpture
Transmit motion without contact. Magnets are attached to the spokes of several wheels, which influence each other. If you turn one of the wheels, the…
Coupled pendulums
Transferring energy. Two identical pendulums, connected by a helical spring. When one pendulum is set in motion, its energy transfers. Soon, the previously…
Coupled Rotary Pendulums
Twisted oscillation. Two horizontally stacked rods with weights are connected by a steel strip. If one rod is displaced, it begins to oscillate. Soon, it…
Critical Angle
When does total reflection begin? Light usually travels in a straight line. What happens when it encounters a boundary surface? Depending on the angle of…
Crooked Tiles
Cafe Wall Illusion: the tile deception. These parallel lines really seem tilted! The black and white squares can be arranged in stripes or offset into a…
Crushing Mill
Rolling in rotation. Three brass wheels rotate in a circle, like on a carousel. As they spin around their shared vertical axis, they are pulled toward the…
Cube in a Mirror
Move this wire-skeleton cube towards and away from the mirror: when does its mirror image appear biggest?
Cube to Infinity
This cube is as big as a garden hut, mirrored inside, with its corners cut out so kids can crawl in and tall people can see what’s happening inside. What’s…
Cubes cubed
Pull on the cord to create a translucent cube. Keep on pulling to make it grow. Inside the kaleidoscope, it expands backwards as well as forwards so it grows…
Dancing iron particles
«Dancing Trees» 81 electromagnets are covered with fine iron dust. The electromagnets can be controlled either via a sensor surface or via prepared programmes…
Dancing Water Drop
Leidenfrost Phenomenon. The water droplet lasts surprisingly long when it falls onto a scorching hot plate. It zips across the 280-degree surface, carried by…
David versus Goliath
Who is stronger? Push the plunger down. Which of you feels like Goliath and which feels like David? The air pressure is the same in both cylinders. Their…
Deep Walls
Shadows in motion - moving silhouettes. On a large projection surface, divided into 16 fields, shadow images move towards and away from each other. Each…
Deformable Mirror
Here is whole-body morphing at the touch of a switch in a mirror the size of a door. Curvature is controlled at 15 points, offering wild effects from ‘Diagonal…
Depth Enhancer
This exhibit is not accessible during the winter months. When you look at your surroundings through the depth enhancer, they seem quite unfamiliar. The depth…
Dialog in the Vase
Vase with two faces. At some point, the image flips: first, it’s a vase. It rotates. Wait! There are two faces. Two people talking to each other. Two…
Diced Snake
At some point, it’s probably going to work... All sixty dice lined up: what number shows the head of the snake? Now move forward by that number. Roll the…
Different Discs
Estimating and weighing. Visual context and the expectations it creates: wood is lighter than metal, obviously. Or is it? What weight do we expect when…
Digital Sundial
This exhibit is not accessible during the winter months. A digital" sundial without electronics: It does not cast a shadow, but projects the time as luminous…
Disappearing Ghost
The ghost disappears. Where did it go? The ghost reappears. Where did it come from? A puzzle made of three parts: one base element, two pieces to swap. How…
Disappearing Glass Rods
Brought before your eyes: Optical density. Similar to how a drinking straw appears bent in a glass – here is another way to illustrate the phenomenon of…
Distant receiver
Big Ear. If the listening horn is well aligned, birds can be heard chirping even from far away. The large dish collects and focuses sound waves, amplifying…
Distorted Room (Ames Room)
Little one grows tall. An absolutely ordinary room, at least when viewed through the peephole. But wait, the little brother grows taller than the big sister…
Do they fit in the Box?
Too big. Or is it? The cube fits into the glass cube. Clear enough. But the pyramid, the star-shaped object? Too big. Some objects appear larger than they…
Double Gyroscope
Spin = angular momentum or torque. The angular momentum of a top moves – whether spun forward or backward – in the direction of the axis of rotation. How does…
Double Refraction in Calcite Crystals
Viewed through Iceland spar: The lettering appears doubled. Light entering this Iceland spar calcite crystal is split into two beams with opposite…
Droplet Fountain
This exhibit is not accessible during the winter months. A single drop falls and causes ripple patterns in the fountain. What happens to them at the edge of…
Dual Mirror I
by James Seawright This work consists of 110 mirror tiles arranged into two concave surfaces. The radii of the concavities are the same, but the mirrors are…
Echo Pipe
Hello?! Shouting, calling, whistling, clapping – this tube answers. The returned sound is quite different from the original noise. How long does it take for…
Edges communicate Information
Dot, white, somewhat mysterious. Two gray panels, each with a cross. To the right, a white area: In one case, the area is sharply defined against the gray…
Efron’s Dice
Loaded dice. The numbers on the faces of these four dice are nothing like what we’re used to. And they really get your brain working. The first player picks…
Electromagnetic cannon
Which ring flies the furthest? The electromagnetic cannon consists of a coil with an iron core that can be abruptly energised at the push of a button. If…
Electromagnetic puppet theatre
Electricity moves magnets. Three stations each contain four coils whose frequency and phase shift can be adjusted. Figures with magnetic legs can be placed on…
Electromagnetic railway
Electric current produces a magnetic field. A track with a magnetic toy train on it runs through a large coil. At the push of a button, current flows through…
Electrostatic dance
Polystyrene ballet. A plastic plate is rubbed against a leather surface and thus electrostatically charged. The plastic plate is then placed on a copper…
Elliptical Mirror
This έλλειψις has only one goal. At one focus of this mirrored ellipse stands a rotating periscope. At the other focus, a colored cone. Looking at the…
Elusive Mirror
Look into the magic mirror. Can you outsmart it?
Emotion detector
Measuring skin resistance. The skin resistance is influenced by the subject's emotions: the stronger the emotions, the lower the resistance. Here, the skin…
Equal Times
Meeting – in the middle. On this track, a tautochrone, the time it takes for a ball to reach the lowest point is always the same. If we release two balls,…
Escher’s endless Staircase
Ascending downwards. Luckily, this infinite staircase doesn’t exist in our world. It leads upwards endlessly, without ever reaching a top. Similarly, its path…
Experimental Stations 1 to 6
On a hexagonal table is a circus of hands-on activities, all to do with reflections in every-day life: What’s in a surface? Reflections off curved…
Experiments with polarized Light
Playing with light and colors. Light is a wave – and its oscillations vibrate in different directions. With polarization filters and everyday objects, this…
Eye Viewer
Pupils: an astonishing reaction. One eye dazzled, two pupils respond. The pupil’s reaction to light is an involuntary reflex. To some extent, our retina can…
Eyes in the Back of your Head
With this device you can see the skills of your hairdresser: How sharp is the cut around her neck? Are you happy with the fit of their collar? Are you starting…
Face Wipe
Swipe – and the face is gone. A single movement of the hand is enough for a face to disappear, partially or completely. The installation “Erase-A-Face” plays…
Falling tiles
Braking with Eddy Currents. Various metal plates are dropped between two rows of magnets. The magnets generate eddy currents in the plates that slow them…
Falling Water
Splash! From the cube of the Wonder Bridge, five tons of water plunge into the void. Part of the water is propelled through a halfpipe, soaring well beyond…
Fantascope
Forerunner of modern cinema. Phenakistes = deceiver: two printed disks with radial slits create fantastic “films.” This happens when they are rotated in…
Favourite Uncle
Polarization + collage = Polage®. "Prometheus" is a unique work of art, layered on multiple levels. A picture that continuously changes, surprising and…
Feeling current
How strong is the effect of electricity? Here you can feel the sensation of electric current. To do this, you place two fingers on two contacts and increase…
Feeling Eyes
Sometimes round, sometimes oval. With eyes closed and explored by touch, the bowl feels oval. Viewed through the lens and touched, it appears – depending on…
Feeling for Weight
Form influences expectation. Size-weight illusion: the upper of two stacked boxes appears heavier than both boxes combined. Estimating weight and lifting: in…
Field detector
Search for electromagnetic waves. The fields are made audible by loudspeakers on the detectors. They can be found especially in the vicinity of electronic…
Find the Fish!
Fits, from head to fins. The fish, the wire frame next to the image, fits in only one spot into the pattern with the "water lilies." The pattern with many…
Floating Rings
Magical: Three rings floating in perfect balance. That they appear to balance like spinning coins is an illusion. The rings are firmly connected to one…
Floating Tap
This exhibit is not accessible during the winter months. If this tap were not in the Technorama Park, it would probably have come from the land of milk and…
Fog wind tunnel
Streamlines become clearly visible. This is how flowing air behaves: when it encounters a shape, it hugs its surface and gets deflected. The wind tunnel…
Fountain of Instability
This exhibit is not accessible during the winter months. In the middle of the pond, water sprays out of an extremely flexible hose end. At low speed, the end…
Fragrance Memory
In a number of identical looking smelling containers there are pairs of different scents, pleasant and unpleasant. The task is to find these pairs. In…
Fragrance Wheel of Fortune
Scent and emotion: what effect does each smell have? Spin the wheel and smell when it stops. As a "prize," pleasant or unpleasant scents. Delighted or…
Fresnel Lens
Thin lens, big effect. When two visitors look at each other through this large Fresnel lens, they see the other person with an enormous upper body. Since…
Fresnel Mirror
by Dave Barker A mirror that spreads out your face so that you can almost look into your ears! Stand on the red dot, look into the mirror exactly in the…
Frozen Hand
Freeze! The right hand moves to the left – and then moves back. And yet, it remains still. The stroboscopic flash always illuminates the hand in the same…
Full body involvement
Perceive quickly and react immediately with coordinated, skillful movements. Developed as a piece of sports equipment, “Full Body Involvement” promotes…
Generator track
A magnet generates electric current. A track with a magnetic toy railway on it runs through a large coil. When the toy track is moved in the coil, a current…
Gentle Hands
Fine, yet coarse mesh. Perceiving structures: one hand strokes a coarse grid. The other hand strokes a fine mesh. Then both hands simultaneously stroke a grid…
Get the wrong end of the stick?
Levers in Action. Can one person lift three others? On this seesaw, the lever works in your favor. Even if the others are much heavier, the seat plate « on…
Ghost Images
"Triple Eye Lightsticks" Twelve multicolored, vertically arranged LED rods flicker. As the gaze slowly sweeps from left to right, images, text, and patterns…
Giant Pin Screen
The largest Pin Screen in the world. With 250,000 movable plastic pins, the world’s largest Pin Screen creates three-dimensional impressions of fingers,…
Glass Bead Rainbow
Refracting light, reflecting light. Tiny glass beads illuminated by a flashlight: a rainbow appears! They act like prisms, these glass beads. They split the…
Goal-oriented grass
Growing in the Right Direction. Plants, such as grasses, have cells that perceive gravity. This enables them to recognize where above and below is, and they…
Gothic Arch and Flying Buttress
With pillars and arches. Like in a cathedral: this is how forces act in a structure with a tall pointed arch and a system of buttresses. What significant…
Gravitational model or Energy Well
The potential well. Orbiting the gravitational center: once launched, the ball takes wide rounds. For minutes, it gradually accelerates. Its circles become…
Grease Spot Photometer
A spot leading to enlightening insights. What does the grease spot on the paper between the two lamps tell us? The grease-spot photometer was originally…
Gyroscope in a Suitcase
A stubborn companion. Quite heavy, this suitcase. And somehow, it seems to resist the journey. It bucks, pulls to the other side. It swerves, tips upward, as…
Half Shadow
Goethe’s shadow. White lamp on, red lamp on as well: the hand casts a red and a green shadow! We see colors that aren’t actually there. How can that be? The…
Hands-on Mirage
The laser beam brushing the surface of the hot plate is visible until you blow down through the hole. Your relatively cool breath above the hot plate makes a…
Harmonograph
Each drawing is a unique masterpiece. With precision and stability, this arm guides the pen across the paper. Held by magnets on a slowly rotating holder, the…
Hermann Grid and Scintillating Grid with Variants
A static image that flickers. Viewed from a certain distance, with a steady gaze, these images flicker. They scintillate. The Hermann grid seen up close: at…
High-voltage slide
Triboelectricity. A slide and its platform stand on several large insulators. Anyone who slides down is electrostatically charged. If you then touch the…
Higher and further
Water creates pressure. Water jets spray horizontally from the cylinder at different heights. The lower the nozzle, the higher the water pressure and the…
Hinged Kaleidoscope
Slowly close the hinged door, and count the number of regular polygons traced by the red cord: triangle, square, pentagon, hexagon,... Just before the door…
Hollow Head
Only has eyes for you. One step to the left, three to the right, stretch upward a little, bend down: there’s no escape. Those eyes follow you…
Hot - Cold
Can something be hot and cold at the same time? The copper coil is warm on one side and cold on the other. Our temperature receptors detect this immediately…
Hot heap
Life generates Heat. The living organisms contained in a compost heap, such as bacteria and fungi, break down dead organic material and thereby gain energy…
Hot Spot
Your reflection is really hot! A matter of opinion, obviously. And a matter of perspective. One thing is certain: everyone can find a hot spot here. The…
How big is a Million?
Incredibly large. 999,999 yellow balls in a glass cylinder – and one black one. Where is it? What is a million? Through the search, a concrete task turns an…
How many Smarties?
Estimate – and verify. The many colorful Smarties are tempting – and they spark curiosity. How many are there? Many, very many, maybe thousands. How many…
Human electrical circuit
Current flows through you. Several cubes with metal surfaces are placed near a larger cube. If you connect the surfaces of the cubes with your body, current…
Human Pointer
The shadow shows Winterthur's local time. The scale on the ground indicates where to stand today. The shadow of the raised arm then shows the True Solar Time…
I
The world in your head. A room free of distractions, without contrasts or contours: the entire field of vision is exposed to a single constant, homogeneous…
I am a function
Three steps forward, one step back. The point on the screen moves along. The curve displayed on the screen is the target. Goal: move closer, move away, and…
I You Us
Five faces – one world. A stimulating exploration of themes such as freedom, feelings of belonging, or emotions like shyness or embarrassment: who will you…
Icy Bodies
Comet Rain Dry ice doesn’t melt when it warms up. It turns directly into a gas, and very quickly too. This gas shoots out of the small fragments involved…
Image Relay
Face to face. Seeing your partner differently: how does your counterpart now appear to you when viewed through one, two, or three lenses? One of the four…
Impossible Nuts
A perfectly straight pencil that wiggles. When the brain resists what the eye sees: it seems impossible for the pencil to move through the two nuts in such a…
Inclined Chess
Big and bulky for some – small and slim for others. A completely messed-up chess set, right? Agreed? Almost. The chessboard is perfectly level. The pieces…
Infalling Cloud
«Infalling Cloud» Resembling galactic spiral nebulae, whirling wisps endlessly plunge into the funnel. The water vapor, denser than the surrounding air, is…
Infrared camera
Feel and See Heat Cold and warm: what we feel is transformed by the infrared camera into a colorful image. This makes temperatures – and temperature…
Ink Fractals
Fingers grow fingers. As the ink spreads between the two acrylic plates, beautiful fractal patterns form. Finger-like structures that resemble ink…
Inner magnetic structures
Magnetic Domains under the Microscope. With the help of a microscope, the magnetic structures ("domains") inside a magnetisable platelet are made…
Internal Waves
Wave Backwards Tilt the container – the heavier blue liquid flows downward. When it hits the container wall, it bounces back, creating a wave moving…
Inverted Double Pendulum
Balancing with two rods. Balancing one rod on a fingertip: that’s something we can imagine doing. But with two rods connected by a joint, the task becomes…
Inverted Foucault Pendulum
From this point of view … North Pole, Winterthur, Equator: The inclination of the tube containing a thin oscillating rod can be adjusted. Additionally, the…
It's About Time
by Bill Spinhoven In this installation, a video camera captures visitors' position and movements, temporarily stores the data, and then projects the sequences…
Jellyfish
by Bernd Weinmayer A group of glass jellyfish - glassblowing art of the highest order - filled with colourful glowing neon and a few promillen of argon -…
Ju-Ju Bees
As if by magic: glowing bugs. Inside a double-walled glass bowl filled with noble gas lie dozens of modified light bulbs, also filled with noble gas. A simple…
Jumping Water
If you observe the water hoppers in this exhibition object, you might ask yourself a few questions. Is solid water flying through the air here? And do all the…
Kaleidoscope Experiments 1 to 6
Oversized toy or mathematical puzzle? Six kaleidoscopes invite experimentation and reward with crystalline 3-D images. Each kaleidoscope is equipped with a…
Kalliroscope©
Magic and Beauty of Flowing Motion A vortex generator or rather a spectator par excellence. It allows for enchanting, seemingly chaotic, yet somehow regular…
Klankkaatser
Hello world? Shaped like a light bulb, resembling a spacecraft capsule: welcome to the Klankkaatser! Is anyone there? The sound waves don’t drift into space;…
Kneading with magnets
Attractively repulsive. In a bowl there are two strong horn magnets and a large quantity of small iron discs. The iron discs become magnetised near the…
Kopflos
In this exhibit, you can look at yourself in the mirror - but you can adjust the different stripes of the mirror.Maybe you can even manage to lose your head?
Landfall
Funnels and Valleys The sand in this large glass sphere flows through holes in the bottom, creating breaks in the sand’s surface that resemble alpine…
Large drain vortex
Plug removed: This is how the bathtub empties. A water vortex is usually seen – if at all – from above. Like the one in the bathtub drain. Here, the water…
Light Deformation
"Successioni luminose" – physics turned upside down. Light deforms metal: physical laws are seemingly – and visibly – turned on their head here. A white…
Light Island
Reflex – simply play with light. Direct light, mix light colors, experiment with the transparency of filters and materials, and explore refraction: freely…
Light Refraction
What paths does light take? Light travels in straight lines in a homogeneous medium like air or water. At the boundary between different materials, its…
Light Spiral
The light spins! Polarized white light enters a stationary cylinder filled with a sugar solution. The sugar molecules cause a left-handed rotation of the…
Lights ON
Seven lights, seven buttons. The goal: make all seven lights turn on – or none at all. Pressing a button affects three lights and causes a state change: from…
Liquid Dynamics
Chaotic eddies, turbulent swirls – and calm zones. Turbulences become visible. In the flow tank, they appear in the water. Very similar to what happens in a…
Lissajous Double Spring
Vibration as a still image. Lissajous figures are the intertwined curves, like those shown by the LED at the end of the spring. Small works of art created by…
Lissajous Rods
Harmonic oscillation patterns. The six metal rods are shaped to oscillate at different speeds depending on the direction. A metal rod with a width-to-depth…
Lissajous Sounds
What sounds good also looks good. Two small mirrors oscillate at the same frequency as their respective speakers. The frequency of one mirror (and its…
Look in the Clouds
Clouds drift by – shapes emerge. The phenomenon of pareidolia: when watching the drifting clouds on the large screen for a while, we see animals, objects, and…
Look into Infinity
How many of me are there? One mirror reflects another. Your image is reflected so many times that counting them all becomes simply impossible. Almost a…
Love is in the air
Flower pollen grains under the electron microscope When magnified, inconspicuous pollen reveals a fascinating variety of structures with an almost artistic…
Luminous sculptures
Three dimensional circuits. Two contacts are attached to each of three stations, which can be connected with the help of magnetic rods and iron balls. The…
Lying Water Disk
Water shapes sculptures. When two water jets collide, the water is deflected sideways. A water membrane forms, creating a disc. The pressure in the two pipes…
Machine with Concrete / Machine set in Stone
The Eternity Machine. Twelve worm gear mechanisms for eternity! An impressive example of mathematics illustrated mechanically. With each successive gear, the…
Magdeburg hemispheres
Air out! Hemispheres become inseparable. Through vacuum pressure, two hemispheres joined into one cannot be separated anymore. The experiment of the mayor of…
Magic Wand
Persistence of vision. Light is actually invisible. If it doesn’t hit our eyes directly, we can’t see it. Without a screen, a slide projection isn’t very…
Magnet in copper bar
«Floating in Copper» The two copper rods hang in space like a split log. Between them is a magnet that can be made to float with the help of a second magnet…
Magnetic balance
Floating through diamagnetism. Underneath a large ring magnet is a transparent box with a small magnetic cube and a base made of graphite. At exactly the…
Magnetic building blocks
Unconventional building blocks. There is a magnet in each of the different building blocks. Depending on the position of the poles, the building blocks can…
Magnetic diversity
«Visitor Magnet» There are many electromagnetic objects in this large box. Everyone can explore for themselves where the phenomena can be found and how they…
Magnetic repulsion
North pole against north pole. A slight change in the distance between two magnets has a major effect on the force between them. The closer they come, the…
Make the Invisible Visible
Convection made clear and observable. When water is heated, it expands. It becomes lighter and rises. In the less heated water, it creates swirls. The heat…
Make two into one
A new look at familiar faces. Three of you are sitting at a table. One person is looking into two mirrors. With the right eye, they see the person sitting to…
Maxwell’s Wheel
A giant yo-yo. Pretty big and quite heavy, this flywheel. As it spins, the textile band wraps around its hub. The band shortens and pulls the wheel…
Meanderings
Meanders on glass. The glass plate is slightly tilted. Thin streams of water flow over it. What paths does the water take? The fastest path is a straight…
Mega-Kaleidoscope
Duck down and step into the man-sized kaleidoscope: three huge mirrors set in a triangle. Ask a friend to look through the spy-hole, to see you at the centre…
Microscope Model
Magnifying small objects. With a fixed microscope size, the shorter the focal length of the objective lens, the larger the image it produces. Here, the…
Mimose
Unattractive Survival. The leaves of the mimosa fold up as soon as you touch them. With this survival strategy the mimosa protects itself from predators,…
Mirror Made to Measure
How tall a mirror do you need to see yourself from head to toe? Does the height change if you’re closer or further away? (No!) Using the remote control, you…
Mirror Writing 1
Handedness of letters: Most letters of the Roman alphabet are asymmetrical both horizontally and vertically. But C, D and E look the same upside down, though…
Model Eyeball
Nearsighted/farsighted: it makes a difference. We can see objects clearly both up close and far away. This is because our eye muscles can change the shape of…
Moebius Strip
Loop without end. Most things have two sides, but not everything. Among the exceptions is the Möbius strip. When we ride along it with a small train, we…
Moiré
It’s all a matter of perspective. Black point clouds: this impression is created by two perforated plates mounted one behind the other at a certain distance.…
Momentum Machine
Pirouette – an elegant trick. Sometimes fast, sometimes slow, and then breathtakingly fast again – and all these variations in a fluid movement. How do…
Moonwalk
Reduced Gravity. What does it feel like to jump on the Moon? Try it here! A small effort is enough for a big leap. Here, gravity is reduced to one-sixth,…
Movement Blindness
Here just a moment ago. Now gone. Above a rotating pattern, objects are present – and then vanish. Our brain weights and interprets moving and stationary…
Moving Gray Areas
Remaining still while moving, turning, shrinking, growing. They move, these gray figures – yet they stay in the same place. Gray figures, thinly outlined in…
Moving Objects
Rings, rings, rings in a row. Hundreds of small rubber rings move along horizontally stretched strings. Seemingly at random, from right to left – and back…
Moving Stripes
Until the eye wobbles… If the exposure time is too long, the camera cannot capture fast movements. Similarly, the image is blurry if we hold the eye still.…
Multi-Color Luminglas
Glowing spider webs to lightning storms. "Multi-Color Luminglas™️" is a sandwich of glass plates filled with glass beads coated with phosphor. The interior…
Musical antenna
Play with the Field. A large antenna registers the changes in its own electric field when people enter it. The changes are made audible as sounds. In this…
Musical Cloudburst
Dry Shower. What’s hitting the umbrella? It’s music! The intensity of the water jet determines the note. The umbrella acts as a loudspeaker. ❄️ Technorama…
Neon Sinfonie
Pattern effect in plasma. A shimmering glass chalice – filled with fans of light. The "Plasma Chalice" demonstrates, in this chalice with an extremely long…
Never-Ending Scale
When the scale descends infinitely… Listen closely, press a key, then the next – and compare. At first glance, identifying the highest note seems easy. Which…
Newton Rings
Light cancels out light. A simple glass plate under normal light. Under the orange, monochromatic light of a sodium-vapor lamp, a bizarre landscape is…
Non-round Wheels
And yet they roll! With the right rolling surface, even a square rolls perfectly round. This applies to a pentagon as well as to any other regular…
Nothing but air
With a dark field illumination (schlieren optics), the smallest changes in air density (refractive index) are made visible. The apparatus is so large that the…
Obstinate Swing
Let it swing. One person sits still, while one or two others start swinging. Soon, the seated person begins to oscillate as well. These swings, connected by…
Optical Lifting
More or less deep. Catching a fish with bare hands? A tricky task. Why? Where exactly is it swimming? Due to the refraction of light rays – when transitioning…
Oscylinderscope (Wave Watch)
Flipbook for vibrating strings. Turn the black drum with white cross stripes and pluck the strings: their vibrations appear as waves, in a magical way. The…
Parallel Mirrors
If you look between the pair of parallel mirrors, you see repeating images stretching from left to right. With perfect retro-reflection, this would go on…
Particle or Wave
Particle or wave? Both are correct. As an electromagnetic wave, light spreads out with all the typical characteristics of a wave. At the same time, it behaves…
Pass and become
Everything gets Recycled. Skin beetles and their larvae feed on dead animals. They ensure that carcasses are rapidly decomposed and nutrients are…
Pedal generator
Generate electricity yourself. The pedal generator can make you sweat quite a bit just to boil a sip of water. How much (pedal) power do you think it takes…
Pegboard Pendulum
Carrying momentum. With a rod fixed in the wall, the long pendulum becomes a short one, starting from the point where the long pendulum wraps around the…
Pendulum Cradle (Click-Clack)
Pendulum like Newton. One ball hits the row – one ball bounces away. Two balls hit the row: how many will bounce away now? Here’s a clue: The momentum of an…
Pendulum of Variable Length
The length of the thread of this pendulum can be changed at will via a crank. This has a huge influence on the period of oscillation of a pendulum (i.e. how…
Pendulum Wave
Chaos in perfect alignment. Eleven pendulums of different lengths. Once released, they swing in disarray. And yet, every ten seconds, they return to perfect…
Pendulums of Varying Weights
Experiment like Galileo. Does a heavy pendulum swing faster than a light one? An exciting comparison! With a weight in its center, a pendulum certainly…
Penrose Parquet
Aperiodic pattern. In the aperiodic Penrose tiling, subpatterns repeat irregularly, even though shapes like hexagons or stars appear throughout. Using only…
Pepper’s Ghost
This is one of the oldest special effects, 100 years older than Star Wars and Spiderman. A large piece of glass tilted towards the viewer visually combines a…
Phased Pendulum
Up and down becomes back and forth! Set the pendulum swinging without touching it. Just pull the rope, please. This way, the pendulum is indirectly set in…
Pi
The first 20,000 decimal places. π, the mysterious number – displayed as a digit spiral on a poster. π (Pi) is a natural constant that represents the ratio…
Pin Screen
200,000 needles – a fakir’s delight. Two hundred thousand needles suspended in a perforated board. They beg to be stroked. No pain involved. These needle tips…
Pinhole Magnifier
Sharp vision without magnifying optics. A small hole, no glass – yet a working magnifier? It does! The tiny hole focuses light so that it hits the retina at…
Pins in a magnetic field
Reverse the polarity of the earth. Inside a transparent sphere is a very strong magnet. Iron pins can be held or placed outside the sphere. These align…
Plasma columns
Influence the clouds of mist. A red glowing plasma is generated in two glass columns by an electric field. If you touch the column, you change the electric…
Plasma Top
No cable – and yet it glows! When placed on a curved glass surface, the noble gas inside the sealed spinning top transitions into plasma, energized by the…
Plato’s Playground
by Don Doak A reflection of the reflection of the reflection... - makes a kaleidoscope! The three mirrors in this tube are arranged in such a way that a…
Polytakis
by Caspar Schwabe Created by Zurich mathematician/artist Caspar Schwabe, Polytakis is designed to provoke kaleidoscope aficionados and quizzical visitors…
Population Growth
How fast – and where? Current population figures displayed on a world map, by continent and overall. For each continent, the counters show how many people…
Pseudoscope
In reality … What if we viewed the world with an eye distance of 36 cm – instead of the usual 6 cm – and if the information intended for the left eye were…
Pulfrich Phenomena
This pendulum circles. Through the optics, this pendulum swings in an elliptical path. With a gray filter in front of the other eye, its direction changes.…
Pulfrich Phenomenon
Simple trick, astonishing effect. An object is swinging. Observed with a dark filter in front of one eye: the swinging object now moves along a circular…
Push Over
Now stay steady. Standing on one leg – nothing could be easier. But is it still true when the panel with vertical stripes moves back and forth? This throws…
Pythagoras’ Theorem - Easy to weigh up!
a² + b² = c² with stars and bunnies. The square of the hypotenuse and the squares of the legs can be weighed against each other, as they are made of identical…
Pythagoras’ Theorem - flows from this
a² + b² = c² The Pythagorean theorem describes a transformation of areas. In a right triangle, the sum of the squares of the two shorter sides equals the…
Quick thinking
The moment of shock in road traffic - not just a simple reaction but also thinking! Unlike the simple reaction time, this also involves thinking quickly:…
Radar Reflector
When light strikes a rough surface it is reflected all over the place. Now polish that surface to cut out all the diffuse radiation, and you get a mirror off…
RadiMax (MaxiWheel)
Infinity Top. Moment of inertia, angular momentum, and precession – a delightful interplay. Playing with the RadiMax requires some skill. On the wire-mesh…
Rainbow Smileys
From black and white to a burst of colors. Disks with black-and-white patterns, illuminated by a white lamp. But this lamp has a trick up its sleeve! It…
Real-Virtual, Virtual-Real
Image and/or reflection. In a bulging glass vessel illuminated from below, a small object hangs. Or are there two? The glass body behaves like a concave…
Red Explorers
Look closely. What are the explorers observing? Scattered throughout the park, they fix their gaze on something intriguing – or a detail easily…
Refracting Telescope
Two lenses, one revolution. This surprisingly simple instrument revolutionized astronomers’ view of our universe! Essentially, the Kepler telescope consists…
Refraction up to Total Internal Reflection
Deflecting a laser beam. Light travels in straight lines as long as it remains in a homogeneous medium. At the boundary between air and water, its propagation…
Resonant Pendulum
260 kilos in motion, effortlessly. It’s quite heavy, this steel block on a rope. Yet, a small magnet is enough to set it swinging! Finesse beats force:…
Resonant Rings
Vibrations based on frequency. Six spring-steel rings oscillate in response to the speaker’s frequency. If it matches the natural frequency of a ring, the…
Resonant Rods
Wildly swinging rods… Two metal rods rise vertically from a wobbling table. They are of different lengths. The vibrational energy of the table transfers to…
Reversed Perspective
Art gallery reveals contradictions. This three-dimensional spatial sculpture completely overturns our visual habits. It flips the space by presenting elements…
Rift Zone
«Rift Zone» An air-filled membrane covered by a layer of sand. Press the button, and small sand fountains soon bubble up. The surface rises…
Rising or Falling
Interpreting signals of position and balance. When the platform lowers and the column elongates: how does the brain interpret the messages from tactile cells…
Rocking Roller - the Oloid
Wobbles, but goes straight. The oloid has only one surface. It is the only known shape that fully unwinds as it rolls. This means that every point on its…
Rockspinner
Strong Like Obelix! This "menhir" weighs five tons – yet you can move it effortlessly. The secret? The rod is perfectly mounted inside the stone, allowing it…
Rodeo Gyroscope
Rock, rock, oh wow! Take a seat, the flywheel spins. The seat lowers – affecting the axis of this gyroscope. The gyroscope reacts to this change. It tilts…
Rope Squirter
Indian Rope Trick? The loop stands firm. Guided through two rollers, the rope is driven upward by an electric motor. Surprisingly stable, the loop holds in…
Rotating Chair with Bicycle Wheel Gyroscope
Turning left: pull the handlebars to the right. When initiating a left turn on the bicycle, we pull the handlebars slightly to the right. At a certain speed,…
Rotating Chair with electric double Gyroscope
Disk in motion. Chair with spin. The station drives the two disks of the double gyroscope. If both rotate in the same direction, the rotating chair…
Rotating magnets
Hovering through rotation. One magnet is set into rapid rotation. If you now approach a second magnet to the rotating one, the second one starts to rotate as…
Rotating Mirrors
No mysteries with the flat 180° mirror: rotate it and your image stays straight in front of you. The two mirrors joined at a 90° corner give you the…
Rotating Pendulum
Standing Wave. An impulse triggered by the handwheel travels as a wave motion up the rotating wheel and back down. By periodically moving the wheel back and…
Rotating Tunnel
Hold on! Walking on solid ground, like on a swaying ship. Standing stable, walking upright on flat ground: nothing could be easier. Or is it? The rotating…
S-bend Mirror
Lying and standing. Some fairground mirrors make you very small, others very large. Our mirrors do both! Make yourself small, tall, thick, thin and even…
Sand images
Sliding, floating, flowing So beautiful, so fascinating: The sand, moving here between glass plates, tells a story far beyond that of an hourglass. When it…
Scintillating Screen & Hermann Grid
Why TV hosts don’t wear patterned shirts. Patterns appear within the pattern. At least when observed for a while. Dark lines emerge, then start flickering,…
Sculptures in stroboscopic light
« BLOOM Revelation » and « BLOOM Accordance ». Sculptures come alive: single images, shown in rapid succession, are combined by our brain into a seamless…
Seeing atoms
Ion Trap: One of a kind worldwide! Invisible particles, which we otherwise know only from textbook illustrations, become visible here. In an ion trap,…
Seelenspiegel
Colorful light is brought to life by your imagination. The interaction of light with various glass objects and filters creates fascinating color patterns on a…
Seesaw pump
This exhibit is not accessible during the winter months. Using leverage and teamwork, you can move the hose here with your body weight so that water is pumped…
Separated Fingers
Are these mine? The fingers under the mirror look strange. And they feel strange too; like objects or peculiar creatures. The brain trusts the eyes more than…
Settling Column
«Settling Column» Sand follows gravity. The same happens in this rotating glass tube. Mostly filled with water, the sand settles at the bottom. How can the…
Shadow Box
Flash! Your shadow remains on the wall. Biip, biip, biip and flash: you can already see your figure on the wall, in the position you have chosen for this…
Shadow Casting Panel
Shadows are information. In the "shadow projection plate," the visual information (pixel values) of two different images is stored on a single medium. Each of…
Shadow Cloud
Where there is light, there is also shadow. Secrets are revealed – through shadows! A large, strangely shaped sphere, illuminated by a spotlight, casts a…
Shadow Fence
by Drzach&Suchy These shade fences only work when the sun is shining. The fences are metal sheets with holes and panels sticking out from the sides. When you…
Shadow Pendulum
The shadow reveals. The light conceals. Sometimes, shadows make things visible – while brought into the light, these same things become invisible. “tik” and…
Shake Hands with Yourself
The concave mirror is shiny black: a red ball dangles invitingly, brightly lit. Set the ball swinging, then slowly reach to catch it. Your mirror-image hand…
Shepherd’s Sundial
North? Not relevant. A simple sundial, like those used by shepherds for centuries. The advantage of this clock is that knowing the north direction is…
Shiny Metal Sphere
Here is the fish-eye effect: the centre of the image looks correct but round the edge, where light strikes the sphere’s surface at an oblique angle, it gets…
Sky Window
Perfectly Round Oval. A hole in the landscape. It reflects the sky. From a distance, this mirror appears to be perfectly circular. But upon closer…
Sliding Gray Step
Everything in the gray zone. Light and dark are not absolute values for our perception. Because we do not perceive the gray of the stripes in isolation, but…
Sloping Room
And the ball rolls – uphill. Step right in! Are you standing steady? A normal room with normal furniture, and yet it creates a strange feeling. The reason is…
Slow Blue
Slow Blue. Three light points move at exactly the same speed. Yet, the blue point appears to lag behind the others. The effect is stronger or weaker depending…
Slow Bubbles
«Slow Bubbles» Beautiful, how the bubbles rise slowly. In the thicker silicone oil, they have significant buoyancy but also more friction than in water. This…
Small Pin Screen
Impression and imprint. Press the pins to create a three-dimensional representation. Hand imprint or greeting message? Both. The image is quickly erased – and…
Smell Habituation
Even strong scents fade eventually. In a mixture of a strong and a weak scent, we only smell the strong one – the dominant scent. If we smell the strong scent…
Soap Bubble Basin
Loooong bubbles For kids big and small: form soap bubbles several meters long. Sometimes, a bubble stretches into a tube large enough for a child to fit…
Soap Film Painting
A film with a bulge. Beautiful, the colors that appear when the wide, tall soap film forms! Its colorful patterns are constantly changing. They clearly…
Soft landing
Confidence in Eddy Currents. Here you can let yourself fall backwards and rely on the braking effect of eddy current. Two strong magnets are attached to a…
Solarmobile
Light becomes electric energy. The elements in this mobile each contain a solar cell and an electric motor. If you point the light of a lamp at one of the…
Sonnenfänger
With the sun catcher, you can look at the sun indirectly and thus completely safely. To do this, you have to align the exhibition object with the sun and then…
Sophisticated Shadows
Shadows: much more than just the absence of light. How many penumbras and umbras form when you stand in front of ten light sources? With a dark disk held in…
Sorting machine
Separation using Eddy Currents. The sorting machine uses magnets to sort different coins according to their conductivity. To do this, the magnets are moved…
Spectra
Elements and their colors. Distinguishing individual hues from a color impression: it’s as challenging as identifying individual instruments in an orchestra.…
Spider Sundial
This exhibit is not accessible during the winter months. Swiss Timing once with a Swiss flag: The shadow of a flagpole as a time pointer. This spider's web…
Spindrift
Rolling, spinning, wobbling, tilting. In the flat, slightly curved bowl, the discs don’t simply roll away – they always come back. How long do they spin…
Spot the Difference
Blind with eyes wide open. Click – and a detail in the image changes. Noticed it? Probably not. And if so, more by chance. Change blindness: when we look at…
Square Puzzle and the Square to Triangle-Conversion
Disassemble and reassemble – discrete geometry. Square puzzle: Nine square tiles of different sizes. Arranged correctly, they fit into an almost-square…
Squaring the Circle
Everything always has two sides. From one side, it looks like a square; from the other, a circle. It’s all a matter of viewpoint and perspective. The…
Squirming Palm
Rotating pattern and its afterimage. Stare at the rotating dot pattern for a while, then look at the palm of your hand: it now seems to rotate too – but in…
Standing Water Disk
Collision of two water jets When two water jets collide, the water is deflected sideways. A thin water membrane, resembling a disk, forms. Surface tension…
Still Empty
“Still Empty”: The attempt to fill a glass with light. What a Sisyphean task! The beam (plasma, a secret mixture of noble gases) continuously flows into the…
Street Lamps
At night, all cats are gray! A colorful card (under normal light): under monochromatic orange light, it loses its colors. Illuminated by the yellow light of a…
Superconductivity
Hovering in the cold. Together with a Technorama employee, various experiments with superconductors can be carried out here.
Surface Tension
Clear and tangible. Astonishingly strong, the forces acting on the surface of the water. Slowly pull a metal ring out of the water: you can see how the…
Suspension Bridge
Vibration Patterns. Experience resonance frequency: Walking across the suspension bridge sets it into oscillation. Depending on your movement, these…
Swinging Drawing Board
Just let it draw. The drawing board swings, deliberately. Suspended by four cords, a single push is enough to create a work of art. Drawn as if by magic. The…
Switch-over Pendulum
Mathematical and Physical Pendulums. Here, you can switch between the two pendulums: If the disk at the center of the pendulum rod can rotate freely, it does…
T-Puzzle
Frustratingly simple. Four pieces make up a puzzle. When placed correctly, they form the letter T. Child’s play. But: is this task really that easy?
Taylor-Couette Vortices
Taylor-Couette Flow Two nested cylinders: The gap between them is filled with a liquid (kalliroscope) that makes flows visible. The inner cylinder can…
Tectonic Basin
«Tectonic Basin» When the earth shakes, solid ground begins to flow or even «boil» as if it were liquid. Here, the garnet-red sand particles vibrate and move…
Teeming world in water
Struggle for Survival on the Small Scale. A sample from the stream in Technorama Park contains different organisms. Even with the naked eye you can see it…
Terrella
Solar wind – particle shower – aurora borealis. Terra = Earth. Terrella is its diminutive form. But this one packs a punch! The small metallic globe at the…
Tetrahedron Puzzle I
Three-sided pyramid, puzzle with two pieces. Spatial imagination is required: when correctly combined, these two equally sized bodies form a…
Tetrahedron Puzzle II
Three-sided pyramid, puzzle with four pieces. Spatial imagination is required: when correctly combined, these four equally sized bodies form a…
Tetrahedron Puzzle III
This puzzle game is mainly about spatial imagination. Four (2 equal) bodies made of spheres are to be assembled to form a tetrahedron.
Th shortest Way is not always the quickest
Marble race. Three tracks with the same height difference and the same horizontal distance, but different curves: the straight path is the shortest,…
The big is in the small: crystals
Amazing Order Shake it, please. When the balls come to rest, they arrange themselves into regular patterns. These patterns can be compacted, almost to…
The Circle’s the Limit!
A circle with many corners. Reflect green laser light to form a triangle, a quadrilateral, a pentagon, a … The more corners this polygon has, the more it…
The Eyes help you lift
This exhibit is about the conflict between the visual situation and what I expect from it, how the weights feel, and the feeling when I actually lift the…
The finest difference
How fine is your dexterity? Very fine: experience how this is defined for you with this exhibit. You can feel when something sticks out by ten millimeters.…
The Kiss II
Moving and moving: multiplex hologram. Also known as a stereogram or integral hologram, “The Kiss” is the most famous multiplex hologram, a development of the…
The Odours of Things
Seeing, smelling, evaluating. Cheese? Pleasant. Smelly socks? Unpleasant! Correct – but not here. Visual context strongly influences how smells are perceived.
The separated Self
Right hand: the left hand. Left hand: the right hand. A glance from the right side into the mirror: Yes, that's the left hand. You move your left hand: but it…
The Tea Leaves Experiment / Tea Cup Experiment
«Everyday Physics» Experiment like Albert Einstein. In a paper about river meander formation, he wrote: «I begin with a small experiment that anyone can…
The twist with the coil
Current using earth’s magnetic field. A coil is rotated in the earth's magnetic field and thereby generates current. The current generated depends on the…
Thermal image
The "temperature-sensitive" mirror image - A thermal imaging camera registers its heat radiation and converts this information into an image: cold areas are…
Thread Models
Straight threads, curved surfaces. Rotatable cylindrical model: a cylinder becomes a hyperboloid. A surface generated by the rotation of a hyperbola. Movable…
Three Balls on a String
Motion patterns with momentum. Three balls on a string: what pendulum motions occur at low, medium, and high rotation speeds? Depending on the rotation…
Three Chairs
A different perspective: spatial perception. Looking through the peephole reveals three chairs. Only one is built as we would expect. A side view into the…
Three-dimensional Projection
3D – the cinema is made by the brain. From red and green shadows, plastic, three-dimensional objects emerge. Viewed through glasses with red and green…
Tit for tat
This exhibit is not accessible during the winter months. When it stands still, this "water carousel" actually looks quite normal. However, when the carousel is…
Top chair
Lean back and spin around. As beautiful as a sculpture – and it sets everyone spinning, this chair. It rocks. It rotates. Or simply remains still. by Thomas…
Total Internal Reflection
Trapped light. A tip for the dear citizens of Schilda: here’s how you could have brought light into the windowless town hall! The method is based on a…
Touch the Spring!
Or maybe not? It appears incredibly real: a three-dimensional image – here a feather – reflected by a spherical mirror. Impossible to touch.
Touching the Knife (or not)
Ouch! A Swiss army knife floats freely in the air. Appearance and reality: no one gets cut by this knife. Reaching for it ends in thin air. What we see is…
Towers of Hanoi
Rearranging – how many moves does it take? Five disks stacked on a pole, arranged from largest to smallest. These five disks need to be moved to one of the…
Trapezoidal Window
Half a turn forward, half a turn back. A window, drawn in perspective, thus takes on a trapezoidal shape. Suspended by a nylon thread, it rotates on its own…
Travelling Chain
«Travelling Chain» A fleeting, playful touch of the moving bicycle chain – and it performs surprising twists or gentle, artistically elegant wave motions. by…
Treadmill After Effect
This experiment consists of three parts, a pilot phase, an experimental phase and a test phase. In the pilot phase, people "jog" in place for 30 seconds with…
Triad - metal, stone, wood
This exhibit is not accessible during the winter months. It is amazing what sound is produced by striking the stone slabs, the metal pipes and the wooden…
Tricky Curves
Reorienting in space. In us, vision and movement are closely interconnected: we see where things are and simultaneously sense where our body is in space.…
Tricky target well
This exhibit is not accessible during the winter months. Here you have to hit a target in the water with a water jet. To do this, you have to use your combined…
Triple-period pendulum
A tricky challenge. Situation: Three pendulums with strings of different lengths but identical swinging masses. Various weights are available to attach to the…
Turbulent Orb
Currents and their Shapes Ever spun a globe? Turned by a hand crank, it creates horizontal bands. What happens when the movement slows down? Chaotic, stormy…
Turning Shadow
Playing with the Pulfrich effect: perceiving a two-dimensional image as three-dimensional. Through the Pulfrich glasses, the shadow of the cube gains depth.…
Turntable
Rolling in place. Balls and rings on a table. On top, a rotating disc – with countless ways to play. Rings wobble, fast-rolling billiard balls stay in…
Two Wheels and a Ball
Opposing Circular Motions. In the middle: a ball. On its sides: two wheels. How does the ball move when both discs spin at the same speed? And how does it…
Underwater Sandstorm
Underwater dunes At the seaside, in the shallow sandy shore, you can observe an underwater dune landscape sculpted by the tides. In the plexiglass sphere…
Unwanted Light Reflections
Unwanted reflections – a simple trick. Photographers are familiar with this: light reflections on glass or water surfaces – and they can be disruptive. A…
Vertical Mobiles (Chaotic Pendulums)
Chaotic pendulums. Length and amplitude: the behavior of a simple pendulum can be precisely described. No randomness involved. Add another pendulum, then one…
Vibrating Pin Screen
Pulsating images. Almost a quarter-million swinging pendulums! Nails of varying lengths, suspended in a perforated board and set in motion. The oscillation…
Vibrating String
Nodes, loops, nodes, loops. The spring steel plate at the end of the string oscillates a hundred times per second. Lateral movements depend on how strongly we…
Vomit, Grass and Candyfloss
Different scents, a surprising sum. Scents evoke specific feelings, moods, and memories in us. How they are perceived and judged varies individually and…
Vortex Action in Bottles
Race: Empty the Bottle A simple task: Who can empty their PET bottle faster? Turn the bottle – the rest happens on its own. But it can go even faster. How?…
Vortice Cylinder
Whirlpool in a Glass of Water Turn vigorously, please. Driven by the hand crank, the water in the cylinder starts spinning slowly, then faster and…
Watch Water Freeze / Ice Flowers
Watch Water Freeze Crystals form on the cold surface, like frost flowers on windows, a sight we see less often thanks to better insulation. Here, you can see…
Water Bell
Like an elastic skin. Water flows upward against a flat surface. Diverted outward, it forms a bell shape. The shape of this bell depends on the pressure of…
Water film
Clinging Water. A daily phenomenon displayed in its most beautiful form: why doesn’t the water simply drip off the silver mushroom? Molecular interactions…
Water Music
This exhibit is not accessible during the winter months. Here you can become musicians and compose your own personal water music! Find out for yourself how the…
Water Parabola
Parabola in a natural phenomenon. As the rotational speed of this container increases, the water surface inside curves. The faster it rotates, the steeper the…
Water Vortex
This exhibit is not accessible during the winter months. This bowl is filled through four nozzles and has a drainage hole slightly to the side. Thus, the water…
Waterfall Effect (Rotating Spirals)
Vision happens primarily in the brain. Spiral patterns seem to fold in and out as this disc rotates. If we focus on a stationary object, it suddenly appears…
Illusory motion, its direction, and afterimages. As the disc spins, the spiral patterns seem to turn inside out. Then, after focusing on the patterns for a…
Wave Machine
Hier wird "Holz anfassen" beim Wort genommen. Nicht zum Anschauen, sondern zum Schalten und Walten, zum Hebeln und Kurbeln, zum Treten und Klappern hat Pierre…
Wave Patterns
Waves on the surface of a thin layer of water become clearly visible with a suitable projection. A vibrating beam produces waves with straight-line crests.…
Waves in springs (Big Slinky)
Transverse wave, longitudinal wave, standing wave. A light push forward, and the twelve-meter-long spring wave moves. At its end, it bounces back and returns.…
Weird Wheels
Not round, but it rolls round. These discs aren’t round, but when they roll, their axis stays at the same height: solids of constant width. Disc-shaped bodies…
Welcome to Sector K… ?
This is how we read, this is how we understand written text. A letter is missing, the word is misspelled – and yet, we immediately understand what is…
What does she say?
The McGurk Effect: hearing with your eyes. Four faces appear on a screen, speaking simultaneously. Depending on which face we focus on, we hear a different…
What is Polarization?
Light and oscillations. Normal, unpolarized light is a mixture of light waves with different oscillation directions. When all light waves have the same…
Wheel of Life
Does our brain work like a film camera? Similar to a flipbook, an endless film plays here. The twelve tiny light dots are the main actors. Despite this sparse…
Whisper Route
Amplifying Sound. Clearly understandable, even from forty meters away, what your conversation partner is saying. Receiving/Listening: One of the satellite…
White Plasma Plume
Art with the fourth state of matter. Beautiful, this work by Wayne Strattman. Elegant, the glowing white plumes in “White Plasma Plumes” as they move.…
Why is the Sky blue?
… and why does the sun blush? The sky could be black as night, couldn’t it? After all, we’re looking directly into the nearly black universe. To understand…
Wide of the Mark
Throwing a ball through a ring: easy. Even with these glasses? The glasses shift the field of vision. The ball is now likely to miss its target. By…
Wild water wheel
This exhibit is not accessible during the winter months. Depending on the speed of rotation of the water drum, you can transport different amounts of water up…
Wind Machine
This exhibit is not accessible during the winter months. A gentle breeze, a stiff wind or even a storm - you hear it all the time, but have you ever…
Windy Pictures II
Wild Air: Selfie in the headwind. A fan blows air straight into your face. How does it affect you? The photo will show it, to you and your friends, as your…
Wire Mesh Sculpture
Movement illusion. With a poetic touch, this artwork depicts movement illusions that underlie film and television technology. The wire figures differ only…
Wolf, Goat and Cabbage
Keep calm, ferryman! Task: transport cabbage, goat, and wolf to the other side of the river. Tricky, since only one other passenger fits on the ferry. The…
Wooden machine A
Wooden machine B
Wooden machine C
Wooden machine D
Wooden machine E
Wooden machine F
Wooden machine G
Wooden machine H
Wooden machine I
Wooden machine L
Wooden machine M
Wooden machine N
Wooden machine O
Wooden machine P
Wooden machine Q
Wooden machine R
Wooden machine S
Wooden machine T
You & Me
Faces merging. Depending on the lighting, viewed through the semi-transparent mirror, two faces become one. Does the other person’s face dominate? Then the…
You and I
Feelings of closeness. There’s a head, a face, just 35 centimeters away. A distance that normally belongs to the personal intimate zone. What sensations does…
Your Father's Nose...
Share your face with someone else! Between the mirror strips you can look at the other person's face so that you can alternately "see" your own eyes, a foreign…
Zoom Mirror
by Christian Megert This mirror is flexible. It changes its shape from convex to concave and vice versa. Seen from a distance, your mirror image is upright and…
«Poppier»
When walls wobble. Reversed perspective: it turns our visual habits upside down. The three-dimensional sculptural painting “Poppier” practically flips spaces…
