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…
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…
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…
Boyo
Reaching High. Pull the rope with the handle firmly downward – immediately, the flywheel pulls the rope and handle back up. It works like a yo-yo, but in…
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…
Catenary Arch
Building solid – like the Romans. An arch as a delicate structure: reconstructing what the Romans perfected. Understanding what gives their elegant arches…
Chembongo
A stone with a mind of its own. This giant “Celtic rocking stone” (Chembongo) behaves peculiarly: when nudged, it starts to rotate. Turned the wrong way, it…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Hovering between extremes
Experience the electrostatic force. Can the polystyrene ball float between the upper and lower hemispheres? No, but it can jump back and forth between…
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…
Jupiter Pendulum
Moon: sluggish. Jupiter: frantic. The stronger the gravity, the faster pendulums swing. Their oscillation period does not depend on their mass but on the…
Loose Stone Bridge
Brilliantly strong and simple. Loose stones, assembled in the correct order, form a bridge capable of bearing weight. Even in a small format, it can support…
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…
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 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…
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…
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,…
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…
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:…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Coriolis Carousel
And yet it moves! Astonishing phenomena are revealed when one earth day only lasts four seconds.
Acoustics
Aggregate states
Algorithms
Animals, plants, habitats
Atomic and quantum physics
Atomic structure
Automats
Biology
Buoyancy
Chaos
Characteristics of life
Chemical Reactions
Chemistry
Colors
Computer science
Cryptology
Currents
Data and information
Design elements
Earth sciences
Electricity
Electricity and energy
Electricity and magnetism
Elektromagnetismus