{"id":245,"date":"2016-06-05T18:40:24","date_gmt":"2016-06-05T18:40:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/?p=245"},"modified":"2016-06-05T20:33:18","modified_gmt":"2016-06-05T20:33:18","slug":"sunday-june-5-2016-munich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/2016\/06\/05\/sunday-june-5-2016-munich\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunday, June 5, 2016 Munich"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"6\/5\/16\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Automatic Music Machine (piano and violin), beautifully named \u201cPhonoliszt Violina\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"6\/5\/16\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Detail of the Music Machine <\/span><\/p>\n

\"6\/5\/16\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Glass\u00a0Blowing Demonstration<\/span><\/p>\n

\"6\/5\/16\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Giant Photo Multiplier Tube (aka beautiful physics thingy)<\/span><\/p>\n

\"6\/5\/16\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Cray-1 Super Computer (1975)<\/p>\n

\"6\/5\/16\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Cray 1 \u201cLoveseat\u201d (power and cooling under lovely brown pleather)<\/span><\/p>\n

\"6\/5\/16\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Enigma Machine<\/span><\/p>\n

\"6\/5\/16\"<\/a><\/p>\n

17th Century Turret Clock<\/span><\/p>\n

\"6\/5\/16\"<\/a><\/p>\n

17th Century \u201cDeath Clock\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"6\/5\/16\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Blowing Bubbles in Front of the Deutsche Museum<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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\u2019t even give us enough time for all exhibits. But we had so much fun with the exhibits we did look at! \u00a0Mark 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. \u00a0We did start with the mechanical musical instruments, which helped–there were some fun electronic and pre-electronic \u201cmusic machines.\u201d 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\u201d by 3\u201d 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 \u201cI had THIS one as a child\u201d conversations everywhere. \u00a0Then 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\u2019t overrun, and also no pricier than our other lunches these days. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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. \u00a0It weighed 5.5 tons and featured \u201cthe world\u2019s most expensive love seat\u201d–a pleather-covered cooling and power unit. \u00a0Mark 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\u2019s 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 \u201cDampfnudel\u201d (a sweet dumpling with vanilla sauce) for a snack! I\u2019d 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. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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. \u00a0We had a pleasant Abendbrot and then chatted while checking out Mark\u2019s new photos and updating the blog while Kai, Dorothee and Imke talked about music and art. \u00a0Again, we\u2019re hoping for better weather for tomorrow–many rain showers today, but also a rainbow and a few patches of blue, so there is hope! <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Automatic Music Machine (piano and violin), beautifully named \u201cPhonoliszt Violina\u201d Detail of the Music Machine Glass\u00a0Blowing Demonstration Giant Photo Multiplier Tube (aka beautiful physics thingy) The Cray-1 Super Computer (1975) Cray 1 \u201cLoveseat\u201d (power and cooling under lovely brown pleather) Enigma Machine 17th Century Turret Clock 17th Century \u201cDeath Clock\u201d Blowing Bubbles in Front of … Continue reading “Sunday, June 5, 2016 Munich”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2016-germany"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":251,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions\/251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}