Automatic Music Machine (piano and violin), beautifully named “Phonoliszt Violina”
Detail of the Music Machine
Glass Blowing Demonstration
Giant Photo Multiplier Tube (aka beautiful physics thingy)
The Cray-1 Super Computer (1975)
Cray 1 “Loveseat” (power and cooling under lovely brown pleather)
Enigma Machine
17th Century Turret Clock
17th Century “Death Clock”
Blowing Bubbles in Front of the Deutsche Museum
Sadly, today started with more rain, but we had a rain program worked out pretty quickly–Mark, Kai and I decided to spend the day in the famous and crazy-busy German Museum, a tech museum with many hands-on exhibits, one of Germany’s most-visited museums, with something like 1.5 million visitors per year. We made our way there by about 11, and had to stand in line for a while to get in, but we had a great time. The museum actually had a number of closed exhibits because of extensive renovations, but even so, a full museum day there (until almost 4 pm) didn’t even give us enough time for all exhibits. But we had so much fun with the exhibits we did look at! Mark was like a kid in a candy store, I loved seeing actual demonstrations of things he always talks about, and even Kai was really very interested. We did start with the mechanical musical instruments, which helped–there were some fun electronic and pre-electronic “music machines.” The same floor had some other interesting highlights–a replica of the cave paintings of Altamira, a glass-blowing demonstration and a gigantic photo multiplier tube in the glass technology exhibit, and, in the ceramics part, an entire mini version of a brick factory that produces cute little 2” by 3” clay bricks. I ended up geeking out with several other visitors my age over the tech toy exhibit, which included Fischertechnik and early-gen Legos, with the classic “I had THIS one as a child” conversations everywhere. Then we had lunch on the top floor–a good call, because the many hundreds of visitors with kids clearly went to the restaurant on the ground floor instead, and it wasn’t overrun, and also no pricier than our other lunches these days.
The best part of the museum came after lunch–the third floor was primarily computers, microcomputers, and mathematical machinery. Obviously, EVERYTHING was interesting to Mark, but I really enjoyed finding out more about familiar-sounding devices and machines that I had never seen before, like one of the enigma machines, various machines developed by the German computer engineer Zuse, and a Cray 1 computer from 1975, one of 80 built for a mere $ 8.8 million each. It weighed 5.5 tons and featured “the world’s most expensive love seat”–a pleather-covered cooling and power unit. Mark pointed out that an iPhone is about six times faster (160 MFLOPS vs. 930 MFLOPS, if you really want to know). The microcomputer section was especially fascinating because Mark could show me how the silicon crystals for microchips are grown, treated, and made into the little integrated circuits that he uses all the time. I understood for the first time, at least sort of, how logical language can be translated into machinery. We also looked at clocks (and I realized how closely Mark’s fascination with clocks and with computers are related to each other) and checked out the astrology exhibit and a huge basement full of replicas of mining shafts, equipment, etc. for salt mines, coal mines, and lignite mines. We also had a memorable “Dampfnudel” (a sweet dumpling with vanilla sauce) for a snack! I’d still say that the museum would be exhausting with kids (the giant bubbles they could make while waiting for tickets notwithstanding)–but I also vividly remember going there with my parents as a teenager and loving the museum even then.
We left around 4 pm and met up with Imke and an old family friend, Dorothee, who joined us from Hanover for a few more days here, and got home at about 5 pm. We had a pleasant Abendbrot and then chatted while checking out Mark’s new photos and updating the blog while Kai, Dorothee and Imke talked about music and art. Again, we’re hoping for better weather for tomorrow–many rain showers today, but also a rainbow and a few patches of blue, so there is hope!