Record number of visitors to the Long Night of Sciences at HZB in Adlershof
© HZB/M. Setzpfandt
How to mix different colours? The school lab prepared some experiments to investigate colours and lights.
At cool corner there were experiments with liquid nitrogen.
Thank you for your visit. See you 2019 at HZB Wannsee.
4,700 visitors came to see the electron accelerator BESSY II and the energy laboratories and experimental stations dedicated to researching solar energy. That makes nearly 20 percent more interested visitors to HZB’s Adlershof campus than last time.
“We were really pleased to be able to show so many visitors what we are working on here at Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin. So many people came to us with such great interest and asking a lot of questions, and the mood was great all the way into the late hours. Thank you to all the employees for your involvement and commitment,” says the acting Scientific Director of HZB, Prof. Dr. Bernd Rech.
Some highlights this year were the experiments with liquid nitrogen: at summery temperatures of 32 degrees, the crowd was certainly impressed with and grateful for the homemade ice cream. Many young visitors were also amazed at how extreme cold can change the properties of ordinary, every-day objects: bananas were used as hammers to smash paper towels into smithereens before the enraptured audience. Of course, researchers make use of effects like this as well, chilling their samples down to discover ever new, interesting properties.
There was also strong attendance in the guided visits through the Energy Research Lab EMIL and the Perovskite Laboratories, and in the demonstrations made at the Scanning Electron Microscope. HZB researchers gave presentations about relevant topics including, among others, recycling of solar modules and new market trends in photovoltaics. And the Photovoltaics Competence Centre demonstrated how it has managed to bring the photovoltaics industry and research together.
3,200 people who visited the accelerator BESSY II learned at various stations just how much technology goes into BESSY II and how much effort it takes to provide researchers with X-ray light at consistently outstanding quality. Many visitors stayed into the late hours of the evening to see the stations for protein crystallography and the “Frosty Science” experiments, and of course to watch our classic demo: the chocolate-marshmallow-in-a-vacuum experiment.
You can also get a little taste of the Long Night of the Sciences on YouTube.
Long Night of the Sciences 2019
Best mark your calendars now: HZB will be hosting the next Long Night of the Sciences on its Wannsee campus on 15 June 2019.