Exploring Germany's Deutsches Museum for Science in Munich, Germany with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget
The Deutsches Museum in Munich, Germany beckons visitors to deepen their knowledge of the sciences they already know and discover how other sciences and technologies evolved often by viewing original machines or replicas.
The first thing that will surprise visitors to the Deutsches Museum is the amount of wood and brass you will see. Early scientific equipment was often made of wood and highly polished, so that it still resembles a work of art.
The Deutsches Museum houses a boggling array of items, including planes, cars, full-size boats, a replica of Foucault’s Pendulum, and a reproduction of Galileo’s workshop. You really cannot appreciate more than one or two galleries at a time on a visit.
During the visit I spent with my husband, we spent most of our time in the topography and mapping and mathematics galleries.
This is especially true of land surveying equipment, models, and globes used to make topographic maps. Topographic maps show the shape and elevation of land. Topographic maps help with disaster prevention and land use planning and are especially necessary in Alpine landscapes.
The mathematics gallery will bring back school day memories for many visitors. For example, even though scientific calculators had been invented, I still had to learn how to use a slide rule to calculate logarithms, the opposite of exponents, in geometry class in high school. I wonder if today’s engineers would know how to use slide rules if their scientific calculators quit on them.
Further on in the mathematics section, there was a large wooden Mobius Curve that you could pick up and handle. It allowed you to see how it was an infinite curve by looking at upper case letters that became lower case letters without turning it over.
An Albrecht Dürer copy of a geometric design drawing by Leonardo da Vinci illustrated the close ties between Germany and Northern Italy as well as the general human delight in spiraling shapes that remind viewers of the Book of Kells or The Lindesfarne Gospels.
After cursory tours of several other galleries, we set out to find a meal that was not the typical sausage and beer that is described as typical “Munich-style” cuisine in most guidebooks. We found a small Bavarian café, where I tried out my budding German and some new foods.
I ate Zagreb-style schnitzel, which is Croatian pan-fried veal coated with breadcrumbs and stuffed with cheese and ham. It is served with fries and took the edge off a foggy winter day that reminded me that the Alps were there even if I could not see them.
My husband had rindersteak (Round Steak) with red wine sauce and rotini pasta. This satisfying dish and mine were accompanied by a salad made of juicy tomatoes and cucumbers.
Our meals fortified us to walk around Munich’s neighborhoods and along the Isar River. The fall colors of the trees in a descending winter fog from the Alps held out promises for hikes and strolls through town despite the cold; we will be back.
By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
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