"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…
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…
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 cushion
Inventive talent is called for here! Use scissors and tape to build objects out of paper that float on the wide air cushion. While testing and optimising, you…
Air Fountain
Dance with scarves. They rise and fall. Colorful scarves, moved by the airflow as if by an invisible hand. Choreography: visitors on the platform. by Daniel…
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…
All Triangels are the same
Central projection: Using various triangular shapes to cast congruent shadows onto a patterned wall with equilateral triangles.
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Big Bounce
Oops – something’s taking off! A truly impulsive experiment: balls that bounce much higher than their starting point! The three differently sized balls move…
Blind Juggler
The Blind Juggler can juggle up to four balls at the same time without any sensors.
Blitzespiegel - Damen
Observe a Reflection, Watch Lightning Location: 2nd floor, staircase 1 (near the entrance)
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…
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…
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…
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,…
Catenary Arch
Building solid – like the Romans. An arch as a delicate structure: reconstructing what the Romans perfected. Understanding what gives their elegant arches…
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…
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…
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…
Climbing generator
A kind of revolving rope ladder is coupled to a generator. Climbing up the rope ladder makes the generator turn, thereby producing electricity. Displays make…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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 Stones
This exhibit is not accessible during the winter months. Hard to believe until you try it yourself. You can turn this eight-ton stone stele under your own…
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…
Depth Enhancer
Perceiving distances differently. The Tiefenverstärker (depth amplifier) artificially increases the distance between our eyes—from an average of 65 mm (in…
Die gelbe Toilette - Herren
Colors from Nowhere Under yellow light, the walls appear colorless. After a minute, normal lighting briefly turns on, revealing the vivid colors on the…
Digital Sundial
"Digital" sundial. It casts no shadow. Instead, it displays the time using illuminated numbers—without any electronics. A combination of aesthetics and…
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…
Distorting faces
by Niclas Roy A whole row of screens each shows the viewer's face. If you hold a magnet to the screen, the electrons in it are deflected, distorting the image.
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…
Drawing on the Move
Elegant circles, spirals, and ellipses. Above a disc with variable rotational speed lies a ruler. If the pen is held still along the ruler, circles are drawn.…
Droplet Fountain
Wave patterns. A single drop falls. In the fountain, a wave pattern appears. How does it develop towards the edge? A strike on the button at the edge…
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…
Electric circuit
What conducts electricity and what does not? What is an electrical circuit? With small, individual electrical components, you can build simple circuits…
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…
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,…
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…
Fading Motion
The curve loses momentum. Sand flows from the pendulum onto a moving green belt. The sand writes curve after curve. Their radius becomes tighter and tighter.…
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…
Farbenwechsel - Damen
Hidden Images Each toilet cubicle is alternately illuminated with pure red, yellow, and blue light. Images on the walls become visible only under a specific…
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…
Floating Tap
And where does the water come from? As if by magic, the faucet floats in mid-air. Water flows continuously, without stopping. A miracle, no doubt. But can it…
Floating Top
Magic without tricks. With the help of a Technorama employee, a magnetic spinning top is set in motion. The spinning top can then be made to hover above a…
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…
Fork balance
You can not only eat with a fork, but they are also easy to balance....
Fountain of Instability
Spitting Snake. Water sprays out in the middle of the pond. The hose moves in a snake-like motion. The end of the hose sways slowly, almost like a pendulum.…
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…
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…
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…
Giant music box
by Brenda Hutchinson They decide themselves, with the help of small discs, which notes are played and thus create their own melody.
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
In urina musica - Herren
Water Music The urinal contains an electronic device. Depending on the contact point and intensity, the urine stream triggers various sensors that produce…
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…
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…
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
Fascinating Water Arches. Is solid water flying through the air? Beautiful: sometimes, continuous arches form, almost like tent poles, but made of water.…
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…
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…
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…
Leonardo’s Bridge
Clever: How Leonardo da Vinci builds a lightweight bridge. No screws, no nails, no ropes; just a few planks. From these, he creates a sturdy bridge. An idea…
Light games
Can you stage your own shadow theatre with simple materials? The exciting lighting and the play with the coloured shadows really set the scene for your…
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 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…
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 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…
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…
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 Ring
This ring never settles down… When we spin a coin, it quickly lies down on its side. This ring, however, spins much longer. Once set in motion, it refuses to…
Magic Wave
A mechanical work of art: A rhythmic rise and fall of metal segments, reminiscent of traveling waves. With a remarkable setup, the artist induces phenomenal…
Magic Wave Model
Magical wave in the stairwell – principle clearly explained. A rotating arm, cords, guide points, and straight metal segments create a wave-like motion that…
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 clouds
Fascinating iron dust. In an aquarium there is fine iron powder that can be attracted from the outside with a magnet. The iron powder can thus be pulled up…
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…
Marble track wall
Various tubes, wooden boards, cardboard strips, etc. can be attached to the large perforated walls with long wooden dowels. This creates very individual marble…
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…
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,…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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 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…
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…
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…
Plasmaspiegel - Herren
Control the Lightning A plasma tube is installed around the sink mirror. The lightning bolts can be influenced by touch. Location: 2nd floor, staircase 1…
Propulsion paths
Gear wheels of different sizes can be put together and several wheels can be connected with rubber bands. Can you make the whole construction work from start…
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…
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…
Refracting Telescope
Two lenses, one revolution. This surprisingly simple instrument revolutionized astronomers’ view of our universe! Essentially, the Kepler telescope consists…
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…
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…
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 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…
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…
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…
Seifenblasenspender - Damen
Soap Foam Press firmly on the bellows: the soap dispenser immediately produces light bubbles for handwashing. Location: 1st floor, staircase 2 (rear…
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
Sun Pixels. At first glance, just a metal plate with holes. But depending on its orientation, an image or message emerges. What these “sun pixels” display…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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
Visible eruptions. What’s happening on the Sun? The solar tracker reveals it as sunspots. Weak and strong eruptions that influence Earth’s magnetic field as…
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
Swiss Timing with Swiss flag. The drawing on the ground looks like a spider’s web, but it accurately shows the time for each date of the year. The advantage…
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…
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…
Swimming with the current
Single-cell organisms swim around in a chamber under a microscope. At the push of a button, the chamber can be put under voltage. The single-celled organisms…
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…
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…
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…
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 Faraday Effect
Magnetic field affects polarization direction. Here, light is polarized by a filter and then sent through a liquid. On the other side, another polarizing…
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 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…
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-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
Coriolis Effect. The water jets on this carousel are aimed toward the center. Once set in motion, they change direction. The Coriolis effect becomes visible…
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…
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…
Triad - metal, stone, wood
This is music! Comparing the sounds of different materials: this is how stone, metal, and wood resonate. The material, its length, volume, and the strength…
Tricky target well
Teamwork. Place a finger on the nozzle of the water jet, and a nearby nozzle’s jet will shoot even farther. Maybe. But maybe not. Which combination will…
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…
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…
Umkehr-Spiegel - Damen
Wait a Moment... Above the large sink mirror, a horizontal mirror is mounted at a right angle. Looking upward reveals an unusual reflection: the eyes seem to…
Umkehr-Spiegel - Herren
Underwater Avalanche
«Underwater Avalanche» The "sand" in this round, water-filled vessel consists of tiny glass beads. Depending on the tilt of the disc, the flow patterns vary…
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…
Unendliche Spiegelungen - Damen
Conduct Your Business Mindfully. In the restroom, a band of mirrors angled differently is mounted at seat height all around. You see yourself infinitely…
Unendliche Spiegelungen - Herren
Unerwartete Enthüllung - Herren
Irresistible Lure. The warm urine (about 33 degrees Celsius) causes the black thermochromatic paint in the urinal bowl to disappear. A snake image…
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…
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 games
This exhibit is not accessible during the winter months. Pump like the world champions: Here, water can be pumped in the most diverse ways. A big playground…
Water Music
Jam session "Splash Sounds". Experiment with water, improvise with surfaces and pipes, conduct an entire water orchestra: these compositions bear your…
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
Spiral wave motion. The vortex resembles the one in a bathtub as water drains. However, the wave that forms within it is less familiar – making the image even…
Waterfall Effect (Rotating Spirals)
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 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.…
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…
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…
Wild water wheel
Clinging Molecules. Depending on the speed of rotation, the drum carries different amounts of water up along its wall. The turbulent water wheel demonstrates…
Wind Machine
Breeze, storm, hurricane. From a gentle breeze to a raging storm: play with the wind. Reduce your surface area or expose as much of it as possible to the…
Wind Veil
by Ned Kahn This façade is a real eye-catcher: it makes the movement of the air around us visible in an impressive way. Thousands of small aluminium plates are…
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…
Wobbly Bridge I Arch Bridge / Wobbly Bridge II Suspension Bridge
Suspension bridge – an arch bridge viewed from a different angle and subjected to a different load. Resembling a suspension bridge, the chain bridge reflects…
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…
Zen-Brunnen
This exhibit is not accessible during the winter months. What does the water pumped up from the last two pumps of the water feature do? It combines to drive a…
Action at -200°C – gases
We are constantly surrounded by gases – even if we cannot see them. We breathe them in and breathe them out, use some and produce others. Gases are fascinating…
Aus Rot und Grün wird ....) Farbmischung mit Kreiseln - inklusiv
bunte Papierscheiben tanzen. Plötzlich sehen wir Farben, die vorher gar nicht da waren. Wie kommt das? Und können wir mit nur drei Farben unsere…
Cold, colder, shock freezing – ice cream in three minutes
Need an ice cream? We only use natural ingredients and freeze them with liquid nitrogen (minus 196 °C!) in no time to a fruity delicacy. Who can say no to a…
CSI Technorama – forensics
Regardless of whether it is a burglary, an accident or a felony, crime scene investigations always begin with securing the evidence. Are there fingerprints?…
Discoveries in daily life – experiments with candles
The phenomena that can be observed with a lighted candle engender a wide range of topics in natural sciences. The flame of a candle not only fascinates us, it…
Do not try this @home - Mikrowelle inklusiv
In unserer Zeit muss alles schnell gehen. Wie hilfreich ist da die Mikrowelle! Aber wie funktioniert dieses Gerät eigentlich? Und warum kann man darin keine…
Do not try this @home – microwaves
In this day and age everything has to be done quickly, and the microwave undoubtedly helps save a lot of time! But how does this appliance actually work? Why…
Entdeckung im Alltäglichen - Experimente mit Kerzen - inklusiv
Die Phänomene, die sich bei einer brennenden Kerze beobachten lassen, führen zu vielen verschiedenen Themen in den Naturwissenschaften. Kerzen lassen uns…
Erratic nature – excitation of atoms
Physics lessons in mainstream school education were extremely limited during the 20th century – especially when it came to expensive and complex experiments.…
Have you ever seen an atom? – Atomic dimensions
Kalt, kälter, schockfrosten - inklusiv
Ein Glace gefällig? Wir verwenden nur natürliche Zutaten und frosten diese mit flüssigem Stickstoff (minus 196 °C!) in Nullkommanix zu einer fruchtigen…
Lighting effects in nature and the home – fluorescence
How can you light up fluorescent objects? Where do lighting effects occur? You extract fluorescent dyes from everyday objects like pudding mixes or laundry…
Radiant insights – radioactivity
CERN in Geneva, the catastrophe in Fukushima, new radiotherapies for treating cancer – atomic and nuclear physics are constantly discovering new findings that…
Radioactivity in everyday life – natural radiation
Radioactivity is not only in nuclear power plants, but also in common foods like mushrooms and dietary salt, in normal fertilizer for roses and, naturally,…
Red and green make …? - colour mixing with spinning tops
Mixing colours differently: We build spinning tops and let colourful paper discs dance. Suddenly we see colours that weren't there before. How is that…
Small building blocks, big effects: Design your chain reaction
A small impulse can change the world. The flap of a butterfly's wings that triggers a hurricane on the other side of the world, or the cry of a mountain…
Tracking atoms – composition of matter
Anti-Gravity Mirror
Learn how to fly with this neat mirror trick. A reflection of your right side can appear to be your left side. Try this activity and you'll appear to perform…
Benham's Disk
A rotating black-and-white disk produces the illusion of color. Rotate this black-and-white pattern at the right speed, and the pattern appears to contain…
Blue Sky
Discover why the sky is blue and the sunset is red. When sunlight travels through the atmosphere, blue light scatters more than the other colors, leaving a…
CD Spectroscope
Make a truth teller for light. Turn an old CD into a spectroscope to analyze light—you may be surprised by what you see. Try pointing your CD spectroscope at…
Cold Metal
"Cold" metal and "warm" wood may be the same temperature. Your hand isn't always a good thermometer. When you touch a variety of materials, some will seem…
Condiment Diver
To paraphrase French philosopher René Descartes: "I sink, therefore I am." Changes in fluid pressure affect the buoyancy of a Cartesian diver made from a…
Coupled Resonant Pendulums
Take advantage of resonance. By taking advantage of resonance, you can cause two pendulums to swing in identical cycles.
Diffraction
Light can bend around edges. Light bends when it passes around an edge or through a slit. This bending is called diffraction. You can easily demonstrate…
Electrical Fleas
Start your own electric flea circus. You’re probably familiar with some of the effects of static electricity: It makes sparks when you comb your hair on a cold…
Glue Stick Sunset
Why is the sky blue? That's a sticky question. Model the scattering of light by the atmosphere—which makes our sky appear blue and our sunsets red—by shining a…
Groovy Sounds
Build a paper-pencil-pin phonograph. In this classic activity, make a record player out of simple materials and listen to your favorite vinyl LP—no outlet…
Hand Battery
Your skin and two different metals create a battery. When you place your hands on metal plates, you and the plates form a battery. The current generated by…
Having a Gas with Water
Use electricity to break water into its elemental components. Build a simple electrolysis device using a 9-volt battery wrapped in oil-based modeling clay,…
Head Harp
Learn a little string theory. Wrap a string around your head and pluck it to play music.
Indicating Electrolysis
Breaking up (water) isn't hard to do. Break up water into hydrogen and oxygen gas with a simple electrolysis device, and use an acid-base indicator and a…
Inverted Bottles
Watch the rise and fall of hot and cold fluids. Investigate convection by using food coloring and water at different temperatures.
Magnetic Suction
Ding dong! This investigation shows how your doorbell works. Have you ever wondered how an old-style doorbell works? This Snack shows you how. A coil of wire…
Moire Patterns
Imperfect alignment can lead to interesting patterns. When you look through one chain-link fence at another, you sometimes see a pattern of light and dark…
Sound Bite
Tune in to tunes with your teeth. When you listen to a radio or music player, you normally hear the sound coming from the speaker or headphones. But sound…
Tiny Hot Pile
Microbial decomposers heat things up. No yard? No problem. Make a mini indoor compost pile, and look for evidence of microbial metabolism.
Coriolis Carousel
And yet it moves! Astonishing phenomena are revealed when one earth day only lasts four seconds.
Laser Kiosk
"Lucid" experiments with an extraordinary light: what is a laser, actually?
Natural History of a lightning flash
A superlative spectacle! Tension runs high in this fascinating play with voltages and currents causing lightning to flicker and copper wires to evaoprate.
Sigi's phenomenal oxgen show
The new oxygen show with the world-famous science show expert Sigi Hornbacher.
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
