Stations-ID: A004

Instructions:

Light streams into the camera through a little opening in the door. Observe the projection on the screen. How does the image change, when the size of the opening is changed or a lense is placed in front of it? Enter the Camera and close the door. How long does it take before you can see something?

• Open and shut the aperture in the door slowely. What happens?
• How does the image change when you use the different pinholes?
• Open the door and examine the premises, then shut the door and examine the projection. is it mirrored or flipped?

The word camera comes from the latin phrase camera obscura, meaning “dark room”. The principle of the pinhole camera was known in Antiquity and was described exhaustively in the 10th centurz by Abu Ali al-Hasan ibn al-Haitham (956-1039/1040), latinized as Alhazen. The Arab mathematician rejected the then-prevelant idea of a beam of vision, which could explain reflection-based phenomena, but not what was observed in the camera obscura. 

Stations-ID: A008

Instruction:

Two people stand in the opposite corner of the room. The others watch from outside the house. Which of the two people inside the house seem taller?
• Examine the shape of the room. What angles and surfaces can you see?
• Which of the two people is standing closer to you? Which one looks bigger?
This construction is based on the work of the American optician Adelbert Ames who probably built on Hermann Helmholtz’s ideas. This optical illusion finds a very practical use in the film industry; In the ‘Lord of the Rings’ films, the scenes involving hobbits and humans where shot in trapeze-shaped, distorted sets to create the illusion of difference in size.

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Stations-ID: D052

Instructions:

Stations-ID: D047

Instructions:

Three mirrors are set up to form a triangle. Who enters must take care to not lose themselves in their own reflections.

• Can you look at yourself from all sides without moving?

• Raise your right hand. Which of your reflections raise their right hand, which their left?

The Earth Tower shown at Expo 2005 in Japan is thought to be the largest kaleidoscope in the world. Like a normal kaleidoscope, it is triangular – but 47 meters high.

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Stations-ID: D069

Instructions:

Spin the barrel.

Pluck one of the strings and observe it.

• What do you notice when the barrel spins slower or quicker?

• Pluck a string. What can you see? What can you hear?

• What do you see when the barrel is spinning?

• What happens when the barrel is spinning slower?

• What’s the difference between the strings?

The strobe effect has many technical appliances. On good record players, the strobe effect is used to discern and adjust the rotation speed of the turntable. It is also used to discern the revolution rate of rotating machines or discover faults in rotating parts.

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Stations-ID: D010

Instructions:

Spin the wooden disk slowly and look at it from a distance of 2 meters.
• What kind of patterns can you see on the disc?
• What do the patterns look like when the disc is rotating?

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Stations-ID: D018

?? English instruction:

• What colours are in the pictures on the wall or your clothing?
• What colour does normal day-light or the light of the hand lamp have?
• What do the colours look like in white light?
• What colour does the sodium vapour lamp in this room have?
„Rays are not colored.“
Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1827)

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Stations-ID: D056

Instructions:

Lenses can also be very flat! This one will magnify, demagnify, distort and turn the world upside down.

• Where do you and your partner have to stand to see each other through the lens?
• Stand on both sides of the lens with a partner, looking at each other.
• At which point can your partner see you clearly, at which point not?
• What happens when your partner walks slowly away from the lens?
• Look at the lenses in the window. Do they all look the same or different?

Both the French Georges-Louis-Leclerc de Buffon (1707-1788) and Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet (1743-1794) as well as the Scottish kaleidoscope inventor Sir David Brewster (1781-1868) had already considered a thin and light lens shape made of concentric glass rings. The physician and engineer Augustin-Jean Fresnel (1788-1827), who was appointed by the French government as secretary of a specially founded beacon authority, came up with the idea of using such lenses for the improvement of beacon optics. The first “Fresnel apparatus” was not put into operation until Fresnel’s death in the year 1832.

Stations-ID: D060

Stations-ID: D045

Stations-ID: D014

?? Work in Progress. English Translation coming soon!

Stations-ID: D053

Instructions:

Two mirrors are hemispherically curved.

• What part of your surroundings can you see in them?
• How does your reflection change when you approach the mirrors?
• Look in the mirror. Which part of the room do you see? Compare that image with the one of a flat mirror.
• Look at yourself in the mirror. Slowly approach the mirror’s surface.

In antiquity, glass mirrors were only known in combination with polished metal plates, but in the 14th century a new method of production emerged: Liquid glass was blown into spheres and coated with metal alloys while it was still hot.

Stations-ID: D051

Instructions:

Take one of the wheels out of its slot and hold it in front of your face, so that you are looking at its black back. Now look at the mirror through the uppermost slot with one eye. Spin the wheel – slowly at first, then faster. First to the right, then to the left.

• What do you see on the disc?
• What do you see in the mirror when you look through the slots in the disc while it is rotating?
• What happens when the rotation is very slow?
• What do you see when looking directly onto the rotating disc?

The Belgian physicist Joseph Antoine Plateau (1801-1883) and the Austrian mathematician and geodesist Simon Ritter von Stampfer (1792- 1864) independently described the principle of perforated rotating discs for the representation of motion sequences.

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Stations-ID: D098

Light-machine: Turn the red crank wheel. Now press the three red buttons in turn. What happens? What difference is there between the 3 lamps? Do you also notice a difference when cranking?

Stations-ID: D026

?? Work in Progress. English Translation coming soon!

Stations-ID: D013

Instructions:

What do you see in blacklight?
• Examine the documents in the showcase, what do they look like in daylight?
• What do your clothes look like in blacklight?
• Smile at each other and you will be surprised!

Blacklight has a high percentage of ultraviolet light. UV – radiation is not visible for the human eye, but can cause specific materials to glow.By using such materials, banknotes or ID cards are made forgery-proof. 

Blacklight parties derive a great deal of their novelty from the use of flourescent materials. Gin Tonic is a very popular drink at such events because the chinin contained in tonic water appears blue in blacklight. It has been reported that students at MIT cover themselves in the cream filing of “Twinkies”, leading to a flourescent effect on the skin. 

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Stations-ID: D009

Instructions:

Concentrate your gaze on the striped wall and balance on one leg at the same time.

Now your partner makes the wall swing sideways.

• How long are you able to stand on one leg?

• What happens when you close your eyes?

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Stations-ID: D027

?? English instruction:

Step between the two mirrors and look into them.

How many mirror images do you see? Are they all the same?

• Lift your right hand. What are your mirror images doing?

• In what angle are the mirrors placed to each other?

• Look carefully at your face in the mirrors.

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Stations-ID: D019

?? English instruction:

Stand between both mirrors.

Compare this experiment with the mirror tunnel – what are the similarities, what are the differences?

• Look at your mirror images – how often can you see yourself from the front and from behind?

• What would you see if the mirrors were standing parallel to each other?

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Stations-ID: D044

?? English instruction:

Two mirrors are standing parallel to each other and a small slot allows the view into the infinite.

• Hold your hand into the Mirror Tunnel while you are looking through the slot – how often can you see it?

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Stations-ID: D050

Instructions:

Look in the mirror and draw or write in such a way that you can see and read it correctly in the mirror. Try to draw a cross or a house. Master illustrators can even draw the Olympic rings (remember: three rings on top, two rings below!)

• Start with drawing vertical and horizontal lines – which ones are causing you more difficulties?
• Try to draw with your eyes closed. Can you recognise your drawing correctly in the mirror?
• How many tries do you need until you can write your name so that you can read it in the mirror?

“I have many visions in my head. I just do not know what they mean” – Lewis Carroll, Alice through the Looking Glass

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Stations-ID: D049

Instructions:

Three mirrors are standing vertically to each other. Is it possible to get a mirror image in such a construction?

• What can you see at the centre, where all three mirrors meet?
• How many reflections can you see?
• Move back and forth in front of the triple mirror and look into the centre. What can you see?

Surface reflectors, such as those found on bicycles, have a reflective surface in the form of many small triple mirrors and are also known as “cat’s eyes”. The eyes of real cats also reflect incoming light, but this is due to the tapetum lucidum, a layer of light – reflecting cells in the cat’s eye

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