"Was wissen wir eigentlich schon von unserem Universum?"

Unter diesem Motto stand der EFFEKTE-Wissenschaftsdienstag am 7. März. Ein Thema, das zahlreiche Interessierte ins Triangel am Kronenplatz lockte – so viele, dass der Vortragssaal komplett gefüllt war und viele Besucherinnen und Besucher nur noch Stehplätze ergattern konnten.

Vor zehn Jahren wurde am CERN in der Nähe von Genf das Higgs-Teilchen entdeckt – ein Höhepunkt auf der Suche nach den physikalischen Grundlagen unserer Welt. Heute wird das Higgs-Teilchen immer noch intensiv erforscht – Überraschungen nicht ausgeschlossen, wie der Vortrag von Prof. Dr. Ulrich Husemann vom Institut für Experimentelle Teilchenphysik des KIT zeigte.
Erforscht werden auch das Universum und deren kosmische Superbeschleuniger. Dafür braucht es Observatorien mit riesiger Leistungsfähigkeit an entlegenen Orten der Erde. Prof. Dr. Ralph Engel vom Institut für Astroteilchenphysik des KIT entführte die Zuhörenden in die einzigartigen weiten Welten unseres Kosmos.
Welche Bedeutung Künstliche Intelligenz, Big Data und der offene Umgang mit wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnissen in der Erforschung des Universums haben, erläuterte Dr. Andreas Haungs vom selben Institut.

Nach den Vorträgen nahmen die Redner auf dem Podiumssofa Platz und beantworteten zahlreiche Fragen des interessierten Publikums.

Im Anschluss konnten sich alle in einer umfangreichen Ausstellung ein anschauliches Bild der wissenschaftlichen Experimente und Erkenntnisse machen und den Forschenden im persönlichen Gespräch weitere Details ihrer Forschung entlocken.

Zur EFFEKTE-Reihe

The EFFEKTE science festival has now come to a successful close.

On the open day, interested visitors of all ages from Karlsruhe visited the KCETA information stand in the mathematics building. In addition to spectacular experiments with liquid nitrogen and the "destruction" of foam kisses in a vacuum cylinder, an octocopter developed by KIT was also on display. On the Teilch-O-Mat, everyone was able to find out in a personality test which of the elementary particles suits him best and have an appropriate button made. Of course, there was also information about KCETA's diverse participation in major international experiments on elementary particles and astroparticles.

Kids & Kosmos was the name of our hands-on exhibition and it was a hit with children and young people between the ages of 6 and 19. Enthusiastic young researchers, young and old alike, were looking for answers to questions such as: What is our universe made of? What is Dark Matter? Where does cosmic radiation come from? Who lives in the particle zoo? Why is the Higgs particle so special? Solar system model, rallye, planet path, handicrafts, dark (liquorice) matter and much more did not let boredom arise!

In the exhibition "Huge experiments for small particles", exhibits and posters of all large-scale experiments in which KCETA is involved were on display. A full-scale model of a Pierre Auger Observatory tank, a Tunka-Rex antenna, models from EDELWEISS, FLUTE and KATRIN and, the star of the exhibition, a model of the CMS detector, in which the proton beam and individual detector parts illuminated at the touch of a button. Among other exhibits, non-stop videos provided information about the various KCETA experiments. If you had any questions, you could contact competent exhibition supervisors at any time.

We reported here about the exhibition "Art of Science - Beauty in Creation".

Despite the heat, there were many interested people who took part in two tours of the KATRIN large-scale experiment at Campus North to learn more about the huge scale for the lightest particle, the neutrino. A journalist from "Die Welt" was also present and reported.

The "Wissenschaft Live" event was a very special one. Everyone could be present in a lecture hall when we went live to the control rooms of major international experiments. Scientists from the CMS experiment (CERN, Geneva), the EDELWEISS experiment (in a highway tunnel near Modane, 1600m below a mountain), the Pierre Auger Observatory (Malargüe, Argentina) and finally the KATRIN experiment at KIT, Campus North, explained how to "control" your large-scale experiment. We were able to see the scientists and their colleagues live at work. Finally, there were many questions from the audience, which were answered by the scientists on site.

Finally, there were a whole series of highly interesting popular science lectures, which were very well attended:

"Physik am Samstag"

• Neutrinos - Key to the Universe (Dr. Susanne Mertens)

"Particles and Universe"

• Fascination between Quarks and Cosmos (Prof. Johannes Blümer)
• How to "see" elementary particles (Prof. Ulrich Husemann)

"Tracking down the great mysteries of astroparticle physics"

• Black Holes and Cosmic Particles (Dr. Ralph Engel)
• The Search for Dark Matter (Dr. Klaus Eitel)

"Higgs - or how particles get to their mass"

• The discovery of the Higgs particle or how the particles get their mass (Prof. Margarete Mühlleitner)
• From the Big Bang in the laboratory to the Higgs particle (Prof. Thomas Müller)

"Physik am Samstag"

• A particle detector on the International Space Station:
  Search for Dark Matter with the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer 02 (Dr. Iris Gebauer)

Three of the lectures took place as part of the "Science Tuesday" in the pavilion in the Schloßgarten:

"The Image of the Universe comes from Karlsruhe"

• Fascination between Quarks and Cosmos (Prof. Johannes Blümer)
• On the trail of cosmic super-accelerators (Dr. Ralph Engel)
• The Search for Dark Matter (Nadine Foerster)

All photos: Astrid Chantelauze and Beatrix von Puttkamer (KIT)