Lightning strikes the Deutsches Museum for the last time this Tuesday. wanted. Because once again there will be demonstrations in the heavy current department before it is closed for years – along with a dozen other exhibitions that are now in the process of being renovated. The popular mine also needs to be expanded. So last chance to visit these highlights of the museum again. Frank Dittmann is curator for energy technology, heavy current technology and automation. He studied electrical engineering and did his doctorate in the history of technology at the TU Dresden. He is the man for electricity, lightning and robots in the museum.
SZ: Mr. Dittmann, you’re letting it rip again as you say goodbye. How many times have you been in the Faraday cage yourself?
Dittmann: I’ve been at the Deutsches Museum since 2005 and of course I’ve sat in there a few times. Before that I never had that opportunity.
As an electrical engineer, 300,000 volts probably leave you cold?
Well, of course I know the effect. But it’s still exciting because the effect is completely different than you imagine. You sit down and almost 300,000 volts are applied. But there’s nothing crackling or tingling, your hair doesn’t stand on end, it’s not even particularly loud. You just have to be free from giddiness. We hang the ball under the ceiling. Around 400,000 people looked at it every year in the Deutsches Museum. The fascination of experiencing electricity and science up close is always visible on their faces.
Is it true that Michael Faraday, the discoverer of the effect, first tried the experiment on his pets, then on his servant in 1836 before putting himself in the cage?
So goes the legend, and it is obvious, because science was still a very elitist affair at the time. Of course, that wouldn’t work like that today (laughs).
Was there ever a glitch during the attempt at the Deutsches Museum?
No! That must not happen either. Our employees are carefully selected and trained, they must have electrical engineering training so they have a sense of danger and complete a checklist every day. After all, this is a matter of life and death.
Did you occasionally have special screenings?
We once had a request from a psychotherapist. She had an anxious patient who had been traumatized by a lightning strike. Her idea was that he would sit in the cage and thus overcome his fear. It worked.
They also let lightning discharge onto a glass plate and strike a model village. Was there film footage, a crime scene?
Artists once wanted to capture the smoke traces of lightning on a canvas. That didn’t work, because our lightning bolt, with one million volts, is a mini lightning bolt compared to nature, where they have 100 million volts.
A million volts still sounds threatening…
Yes, it’s a lot, but if you walk across a carpet with electrically charged clothing or touch a doorknob and it crackles, then 50,000 volts will be discharged. The time factor is crucial. Our current is extremely short and therefore develops little energy, despite the high voltage. So our flashes have low energy costs.
Still, you shouldn’t keep your hands clean.
No way! A TV crew once wanted to document what happens when lightning strikes a human body. They wanted to put a schnitzel in our plant. We rejected that. Aside from the fact that you can’t film the smell of roasted meat, we thought it was unethical.
Do you occasionally receive calls from particularly interested citizens?
Yes, some then want to know, for example, what happens if lightning strikes their sailing boat when they are at sea. It needs grounding, in this case from the mast to the water. Or they argue with the insurance company because their TV broke when a lightning struck. But I’m not an appraiser! I can not help you.
The plant is now being dismantled, will it come back to the same extent?
Yes. It is not only a crowd puller, but also an important piece of technological history and in this form the only one of its kind in the world. When Hans Prinz – he was a professor for high-voltage and systems engineering at the Technical University of Munich – opened it in the Deutsches Museum in 1953, there was no such system at the university and its high-voltage hall was only completed in 1963. Prinz had the brilliant idea of making electricity visible. The facility will have its own space in the future exhibition, with spectator tiers and a high-speed camera for an even better view of the flash in slow motion.
You are responsible for the entire energy sector. That’s a big issue: where do we get our energy from if we want to get away from coal, oil and gas, but renewables have not yet been developed enough and the storage issue has not been resolved. Will the exhibition change a lot in the future?
We will continue to explain the basics of our energy supply in the future: where does the electricity come from, how has the technology developed. But of course we also have to look to the future, even if nobody can say exactly what the situation will be like in ten years. When it comes to energy storage, we’re talking about rechargeable batteries today, but in a few years there may be many more hydrogen storage systems. Smart grid technology is progressing, i.e. the intelligent networking of power-consuming devices, or energy harvesting. This provides power for the many sensors that we will have in a digitized world. Energy harvesting also prevents the battery from having to be changed every few years, for example in a pacemaker or an implanted insulin pump. In order to remain flexible, we need to be able to exchange exhibits easily without disrupting the overall concept. Above all, you have to keep an eye on the social debates: What will prevail? What is accepted? After all, the energy transition is not primarily determined by technology. Otherwise we would have been further along. Political, legal and economic aspects play the main role.
If you have to clear the department now, then you will reevaluate all the exhibits. What stays, what goes away?
That’s right, and there are only a fraction of the objects in the exhibitions, many more are stored in our depots. They are bursting at the seams and cost a lot of money. Nevertheless, we have to decide in each individual case: What should we re-record? What can we possibly separate from, “collect” does that mean for us? What needs to be restored? These are not easy decisions. We have some things, such as measuring devices, by the dozen, but we might like to have others, such as electronic electricity meters.
They are also responsible for the robotics, which will be reopened shortly. You probably had the same problem: Development is progressing rapidly.
Exactly, that caught up with us a few times in the planning. For example, we didn’t really focus on drones in the beginning. Today almost everyone lets such a thing fly, and that with a camera. We are now showing a military drone in the exhibition. As is so often the case, the development was mainly supported by the military. This is where most of the research funding comes from. It was important to me to show this as well.
What is the highlight in the new robotics?
I don’t want to reveal everything just yet. But we introduce a humanoid robot lady from 2009, we have a guitar playing robot – and much more!
On Tuesday, June 28th, the old part of the building German Museum – together with the high-voltage system, the mine, shipping and part of the aviation – accessible for the last time before the renovation. On this day, the high-voltage system is used almost continuously, from 10 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. Seats have already been raffled off for visitors who want to sit in Faraday’s cage that day. Everyone else can watch when there is lightning and cracking. On July 8th, 19 new permanent exhibitions will be presented in the already renovated part of the Museum Island, from nuclear physics and health to agriculture and robotics. Museum opening hours: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily.