Hands-on Science at Phaeno in Wolfsburg

Science can be so exciting: At the Wolfsburg Science Center Phaeno, you embark on a journey of discovery through an experimental landscape. And there is an incredible amount to discover here.

Where to head first? To the robot that chats with a group of visitors? To the balls that dance in the air? To the fire tornado that spirals up before an amazed audience? When you enter the Phaeno in Wolfsburg, you are initially overwhelmed by the many acoustic and visual stimuli that surround you.

There are no signposts or routes through the exhibition area, which is as large as a soccer field. There are also no dividing walls. The space is structured only by large columns and elevations and protrusions in the floor. This is all part of the concept. 'Everyone should find their own way and linger as long as they like,' explains scientific associate Dominik Essing.

The feeling of disorientation quickly gives way to boundless curiosity, and visitors embark on a journey of discovery through a world full of scientific phenomena and experiments, where everything flows seamlessly into one another.

There's an incredible amount to discover: The permanent exhibition alone includes around 350 exhibits. These range from a device that measures your reaction time to a thermal imaging camera that makes different warm regions of the body visible on a screen, to a plasma ball in which threads of glowing gas form as soon as you touch it.

Whether mechanics, optics, magnetism, electricity, or bionics - many scientific phenomena and principles are vividly displayed and literally comprehensible. Though small boards present brief explanations,

Understanding here is not achieved through intellect, but primarily through sensory perception-and through experiencing it firsthand: You can lie on a bed of nails like a fakir without feeling pain. In a house that rotates on its own axis, you lose the sense of up and down, and in another building with sloped surfaces, you struggle to maintain balance.

You are repeatedly invited to experiment. Or you become part of the experiment. Even children can easily lift an old VW Golf-made possible by several pulleys. The simple physical law behind it: The longer the path of the rope, the less force is required.

At another exhibit, your hair stands on end: A Van de Graaff generator produces electrical energy transferred to a glass sphere and then to a human through touch.

The main goal of science at Phaeno is to be fun. For children as well as adults. The knowledge is imparted incidentally. 'We want to train perception and promote a sense for mathematics or physics, for example. Then we also delve into scientific phenomena that we encounter in everyday life,' explains Essing.

Knowledge transfer at Phaeno even becomes a show: In the Science Theater, some phenomena are explained to the audience through experiments. For instance, why does a helium-filled balloon resist centrifugal force? Or how do metronomes organize themselves so that they eventually beat in the same rhythm? At the end, four spectators form a stable system: They remain seated on each other, even when the chairs are pulled out from under them.

Yet you are not always actively engaged. Some works by artists invite quiet observation: You can follow how balls in a ball track take different paths randomly. The six parts of the 'Little Yellow Chair' come together for a fleeting moment before returning to an abstract separate existence. In the artwork 'Dancing Magnetic Hedgehogs,' iron filings move rhythmically to music. In another object, dry ice drags mysterious fog trails across a water surface.

In a separate room, it becomes almost mystical: Here, two hands wrap a hotdog in an eternal cycle. The paper falls to the ground, crumples, becomes an egg, which cracks open, and a hotdog emerges again. You will learn how it works if you light up the room. Thus, the artwork 'Secret Life' symbolizes Phaeno: Much can only be explained inadequately. Only when you view things in a different light do you understand them.

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