Biology

Mathematics

Patterns

Seeing

Senses

Shape and Space

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 riddle for intelligent and patient people

Puzzles for the sharp-minded and patient. Trickier than it seems: these eleven puzzles with strings, boards, and rings are challenging. One of them cannot be…

A Table with loose Legs

Three, two, one – stable. How many supports do we need to stabilize a tabletop? Without screws, without glue, of course. Sharp-minded (and experimental)…

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…

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…

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:…

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,…

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…

Bakterien als Künstler - Damen

Creative Microorganisms A narrow aquarium is filled with sediment from an old pond. In its various layers and under different aerobic and anaerobic…

Bakterien als Künstler - Herren

Creative Microorganisms A narrow aquarium is filled with sediment from an old pond. In its various layers and under different aerobic and anaerobic…

Ball in a Bowl

Shorter path = faster to the goal? A question that occupied the best mathematicians three hundred years ago. This competition compares two parallel tracks,…

Ball sorting machine

Playful tidying up. Yellow. Red. Blue. This machine sorts the small, medium, and large balls among Pierre Andrès' “Machines Singulières” in a playful manner.…

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…

Beam Bridge

The simplest form, but not the most stable. This bridge demonstrates the forces acting on a straight beam when it is loaded and supported only at its two…

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…

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…

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…

Break the code

Qxpoa gvp pbuu: Cryptography. An encrypted text appears on the monitor. The challenge is to decrypt it with as few errors as possible. But there are over four…

Bridge the Gap

Building bridges is not so easy - especially when you are not allowed to use nails, screws or glue! Here you only have nine identical wooden blocks at your…