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Advent calendar 2025—day 24: The Light

From Adolf Luther’s acrylic-glass lenses in Krefeld to microscopes and telescopes, lenses make light—and worlds from particles to galaxies visible. As this Advent calendar comes to a close, our gaze turns to the Star of Bethlehem.

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And yet our minds remain fixed on that star—the one over Bethlehem—that points us toward the mystery we celebrate each Christmas. But that belongs to a different star.
I wish you all a joyful and restful Christmas—and, even now, a “good Beschluss,” as we say here in Franconia: a good resolution for what lies ahead.

Advent calendar 2025—day 23: Kinetic lenses

https://youtu.be/LkhwTFTobe4

From Zeiss’ 1846 workshop to kinetic light art, Jena’s lens culture links physics and aesthetics. Which German kinetic artist, famed for glass lenses and mirrors, died in 1990?

Adventskalender—Tag 23: Kinetische Linsen

Von Zeiss’ Werkstatt (1846) bis zur kinetischen Kunst: Jena zeigt, wie Linsen Physik und Ästhetik verbinden. Welcher deutsche Kinetik-Künstler mit Glaslinsen und Spiegeln starb 1990?

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In art, optical phenomena became central to kinetic art. The light machines of László Moholy-Nagy at the Bauhaus are well known, as is the artist group ZERO with its light objects. In Germany, during the 1960s to ’80s, there was an artist who—working with glass lenses as well as convex and concave glass, and with mirrors—became one of the country’s leading figures in kinetic art. What is the name of this artist, who died in 1990?

Advent calendar 2025—day 22: Quantum art

https://youtu.be/ItBrzcYTUNM

From Planck to phones—and Munich’s “Seeing the Unseen” links quantum physics & art. Our riddle: which famous quantum theorist did Friedrich Hund team up with in Leipzig?

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And now my question about Friedrich Hund: Which famous researcher did he work with in Leipzig in the field of quantum theory? For the GNT community, it’s probably an easy one. Art lovers will have to look it up.

Advent calendar 2025—day 21: Goblin Ore

https://youtu.be/_-CM56Rzwk4

From CoAl₂O₄ to “Kobold” (“Goblin”) mine spirits: why cobalt ore fooled silver miners in the Ore Mountains—and when did Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří become UNESCO World Heritage?

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since when has the Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří mining region been a UNESCO World Heritage site? The answer is actually very easy to find—it’s written up in plenty of places. Go ahead and look it up! You don’t even have to post it as a comment. Tomorrow we’ll go over the solution.

Advent calendar 2025—day 20: Cobalt blue & IKB

https://youtu.be/etYzN50u0LI

From Yves Klein’s famous International Klein Blue process to Sabine Becker’s acrylic cobalt blue—discover why this intense hue glows and what mining secret hides in the name “cobalt blue”.

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Sabine Becker has devoted herself to cobalt blue. She has developed her own acrylic-based process to bring out the full brilliance of this expressive cobalt blue. And my question for you is this: Where does the name “cobalt blue” actually come from? Here’s a hint: the answer contains a small piece of mining history.

Advent calendar 2025—day 19: Installations

https://youtu.be/pDLMhnvRmBg

Water is densest at 3.98°C (so lakes freeze from the top), and today’s riddle follows artist-physicist Peter Vogel—what was his first job as a graduate physicist?

Adventskalender 2025—Tag 19: Installationen

Wasser ist bei 3,98°C am dichtesten (darum frieren Seen von oben), und heute rätseln wir über den Künstler-Physiker Peter Vogel—was war sein erster Job als Diplomphysiker?

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Today I want to talk about a junction between art and the natural sciences that we haven’t touched on yet: artists who, even now, are trained and practicing scientists. That kind of hybrid isn’t something you only find in the age of Leonardo da Vinci.
One example is Peter Vogel. If you walked through the major art fairs in the 1980s and 1990s, you kept running into his electronic installations. He fused the visual presence of the work with sound: sensors translated the viewer’s movements into electrically generated tones. As a young art student, I found these interactive sound installations deeply impressive.
Now for today’s question, which points to the scientific side of this multifaceted artist: What was his first professional job as a graduate physicist? If you have an idea, leave me a comment. I’ll be back tomorrow.

Advent calendar 2025—day 18: Pretty Dense

From Frei Otto’s acrylic Olympic roof to Clemens Hutter’s ice-warped steel, today’s quick quiz asks when water’s density starts dropping again above 0°C.

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In the art section of the gallery, I’m featuring steel sculptor Clemens Hutter, who works with thermodynamics in a very particular way. He shapes hollow iron forms and welds them together. Then he fills them with water and freezes the whole piece. Below a certain temperature threshold, the frozen water expands and deforms the hollow bodies, which in turn fan open as they warp. You can see two small examples behind me.
Clemens Hutter is harnessing water’s density anomaly. In other words: in its solid state—ice—water has a lower density than liquid water, and liquid water reaches its maximum density at a temperature above zero degrees Celsius.
So here’s my question: At how many degrees above zero degrees Celsius does water’s density start to decrease again?

Advent calendar 2025—day 17: The Plastic

https://youtu.be/nHWi-5sKWhg

1960 brought Maiman’s ruby laser (pulsed) and Javan/Bennett/Herriott’s gas laser (continuous)—now guess the iconic plastic architecture in Germany linked to 1972 and tell us in the comments.

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Alongside chapters on laser technology—the topic I’ve just been talking about—it also includes a chapter on plastics.
And that brings me to my next question, from the world of polymers. There’s a famous, genuinely innovative use of plastic in architecture—and I’d like you to tell me where it is. A few hints: it’s in Germany, and it’s linked to the year 1972. Take a guess and drop your answer in the comments.

Advent calendar 2025—day 16: Laserblade

https://youtu.be/8fTcLuQtVSk

Lasers don’t just paint the night sky—they can slice 10-cm (4-in) steel, like Bernhard Müller-Feyen’s 1996 sculpture; can you guess the year the first laser was built?

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Steel can be cut with laser technology with extraordinary precision. And not only that: it’s also possible to cut very thick steel plates. This process was used for the sculpture next to me by Bernhard Müller-Feyen from 1996. The work was cut with a laser from a steel plate 10 cm thick (about 4 inches).
If you’d like to learn more about laser technology and laser research, I recommend the book Laserforschung in Deutschland 1960 bis 1970 (“Laser Research in Germany, 1960–1970”) by Helmuth Albrecht, published by GNT-Verlag. You’ll find the answer to today’s question in that book: In what year was the first laser completed? But you can figure it out without the book, too.

Advent calendar 2025—day 15: And there was light

https://youtu.be/hy3sUJ4S29Y

Tagblatt Tower—Stuttgart’s 1927–28 New Objectivity high-rise, first exposed-concrete skyscraper, once glowed with Moore gas-discharge tubes; what light did Moore sneer was “too small, too hot, too red”?

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For this diffuse glow, the designers used gas-discharge tubes, manufactured in Germany from around 1910 by the Moore Light Company in Berlin. They were named after the American engineer Daniel McFarlan Moore, who developed the so-called “Moore lamp” in the 1890s and patented it in 1902. People also referred to it as Moore light, or Mooresque lighting.
Moore believed so strongly in the light produced by his gas-discharge tubes that he dismissed another form of lighting that existed at the time with the words: “Too small, too hot, and too red.”
Which kind of lighting was he talking about? Here’s my hint: it isn’t candlelight.

🎄🔬🎨 Advent calendar 2025—day 14: Rising towers

https://youtu.be/9tlT-CXHf24

From Le Corbusier’s Ronchamp chapel to Stuttgart’s pioneering TV tower and an earlier 1920s landmark: can you guess which structure changed tower design worldwide?

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Starting in the late 1920s, Stuttgart already had a modern 61-meter-high tower as a landmark. At that time, people were still genuinely enthusiastic about technology. The newspaper Stuttgarter Tagblatt ran a headline for its opening that read “Stuttgart empor!” (i.e. “Stuttgart Rises!”) And contemporary artists did not march against this modern building; instead, they made it the subject of their work—as did Max Ackermann, for example, in 1928 who created a drypoint etching.
So which tower am I talking about? And which construction method, one that shaped both the aesthetics and the engineering of the structure, was used here for the first time anywhere in the world? Here’s a little hint: ChatGPT knows the answer.

🎄🔬🎨 Advent calendar 2025—day 13: Jellyfish Concrete

https://youtu.be/kQGguetPfCo

Jellyfish lines & concrete dreams – from Ulrike Michaelis’s medusa drawings to a 1955 French icon where organic form, structure and function flow together; guess the UNESCO-listed building!

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Today’s question is about a building, completed in 1955, in which creative drive, the laws of construction, modern structural engineering, and pure functionality all merge into one. As a clue, I’m showing you a 1997 study by Peter Christian Reimann of this very building. Because of its organic impact, the structure has become an icon of modern architecture. Architecture buffs will recognize it instantly anyway. For everyone else, here’s one more hint: since 2016 it has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is located in France. That should be enough help. I’ll reveal the name of the building tomorrow.

🎄🔬🎨 Advent calendar 2025—day 11: Art Forms in Nature

From Max Uhlig’s algae-like lines to Nathanael Pringsheim’s proof that algae reproduce sexually, today’s door asks: which Jena zoologist behind “Art Forms in Nature” inspired artists?

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🎄🔬🎨 Advent calendar 2025—day 9: Trace of the East.

https://youtu.be/QpOJ-sqi8_A

Trace of the East—From Goethe’s Italy and the idea of the Urpflanze to lives reshaped after the fall of the Wall, a new book follows physicists from Jena as they reinvent their paths—with a small quiz.

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The most recent book published by GNT illustrates in exemplary fashion how people have dealt with this shared historical turning point in very different ways. Its title is Aufgebrochen. Spur des Ostens. Deutsche Portraits mit Wirkung. (“Departed. Trace of the East. German Portraits with Impact.”). It’s an engaging, fast-paced read. All the protagonists share the fact that they began studying physics at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena. They also share that they all started their studies in the same year.
So my question is this: In which year did the protagonists of this book begin their studies? And how many people does the author, Roland Hensel, portray in this volume? Perhaps you already know the answers, or you’d like to take a guess. Or you might simply visit the website Aufgebrochen.org.

🎄🔬🎨 Puzzle #AdventCalendar #ScienceArtTechAdvent — day 6

https://youtu.be/Lg9-QJro81o

From Vitruvian geometry to Fibonacci’s growth pattern: can you guess which natural process Fibonacci quietly modeled in 1202? Answer follows tomorrow!

And for today’s question, we’re staying with the great minds of the Renaissance. In 1202, Leonardo Fibonacci introduced in his Liber abbaci a numerical sequence that was already known to Greek and Indian mathematicians. This sequence is an infinite series of natural numbers that starts with the number 1 written twice, and in which every subsequent number is the sum of the two preceding ones. So 1 + 1 = 2, 1 + 2 = 3, 2 + 3 = 5, 3 + 5 = 8, and so on. Today we call these the Fibonacci numbers.
They are often read as a kind of growth pattern, and in that sense they still inspire artists today—among them, for example, Lienhard von Monkiewitsch, Petra Paffenholz, and many others.
My question for you now is this: What kind of natural growth did Fibonacci, almost in passing, describe with the Fibonacci sequence back in 1202?

🎄🔬🎨 Puzzle #AdventCalendar #ScienceArtTechAdvent — day 5

https://youtu.be/YtniGamaD6Y

From Prussian blue cyanotypes to Leonardo, Herschel’s iron-based photo process meets Vitruvius’ ideal human—what did Leonardo change (answer tomorrow)?

^Hi, it’s Markus again. And today we’re opening door number five in our social media Advent calendar.
Yesterday I asked about the use of Prussian blue in graphic art. The technique is called cyanotype and it is carried out on ferro-prussiate paper. It was developed in 1842 by the astronomer John Herschel as a photographic process. Unlike other photographic methods being developed at the same time, cyanotype was based on iron rather than silver. The result was photographic images that didn’t appear in shades of gray, but in Prussian blue.
The process was used by the botanist Anna Atkins, a friend of Herschel’s, who in 1843 published a book illustrated with cyanotypes titled Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions.
I don’t have the time here to explain the different chemical processes involved. But you can probably guess where that’s done in depth: in the already familiar book Berliner Blau by Alexander Kraft, published by GNT.
Today, cyanotype is still widely used in art, because this particular blue has a strong emotional impact as a color. Behind me, for example, you can see two cyanotypes by Ulrike Michaelis.

🎄🔬🎨 Puzzle #AdventCalendar #ScienceArtTechAdvent — day 4

Color mishap of 1706: a tainted potash batch turned a red dye into Prussian Blue, the first modern synthetic pigment—can you name the astronomer who used it to invent a blueprint process? Answer tomorrow.

🎄🔬🎨 Puzzle #AdventCalendar #ScienceArtTechAdvent — day 3

Yesterday we talked about Michel Eugène Chevreul (1786–1889) and his theory of simultaneous contrast—today’s puzzle asks: What lab mix-up in 1706 led to the discovery of Prussian blue (“Berliner Blau”), Europe’s first synthetic color?

🎄🔬🎨 Puzzle #AdventCalendar #ScienceArtTechAdvent—day 2

Yesterday’s riddle was about dyer’s woad (Isatis tinctoria), the yellow-flowering dye plant whose indican once gave us indigo; today I’m asking which pioneer of lipid chemistry helped shape color theory by focusing on a particularly striking color phenomenon.

🎄🔬🎨 Puzzle #AdventCalendar #ScienceArtTechAdvent—day 1

How was brilliant blue produced in the Middle Ages from fermented #indigo plants—and what colour did the flower of this dye plant have?

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