What you always wanted to know about (quantum) physics but were afraid to ask
The United Nations proclaimed 2025 the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology. For Lea Richtmann, physicist in the Cluster of Excellence QuantumFrontiers, and artists Miriam Ebbing, Steff Hörmanseder and Ilona Klein, this was the motivation for a joint project.
In a performative exhibition featuring music, projection, installation and video art, they explored selected physical questions and invited visitors to experience topics such as light, quanta and gravity with multiple senses, to investigate them, and to marvel at their diverse manifestations.
What are quanta? How does gravity work? How do stars form? What is dark matter, and why are we searching for it?
Suddenly, it clicked
Many visitors reported that the sensory impressions from the artworks helped them follow purely cognitive explanations of physical relationships more easily. One person put it this way: "I saw this picture and suddenly it clicked."
A confidential place for pressing questions
The Physics Cabinet was particularly popular. In a specially designated room, visitors could ask burning physics questions—even those they might previously have hesitated to ask. Physicists answered from behind a curtain, allowing for anonymous inquiries. The offering proved very popular; queues often formed. In addition to direct answers, small conversations frequently developed in which people puzzled over a question together. In this way, the limits of research and knowledge also became visible.
After the first two performances in April 2025 were a great success, two further performances took place in autumn 2025 as part of November of Science, in cooperation with Wissenschaftsstadt (Science City) department of the City of Hannover. In December 2025, it was also part of the 39th Chaos Communication Congress in Hamburg.
