PRESS RELEASE
13.02.2017
Understanding Matter – The Nobel Prize in Physics
Nobel Museum puts on exhibition in Dubai
Until March 5th, the Children's City in Dubai is presenting the exhibition "Understanding Matter – The Nobel Prize in Physics", designed by ATELIER BRÜCKNER. It is a collaboration between the Nobel Museum, Stockholm, and the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation. Aimed at children and young people, the exhibition allows a playful access into the world of Physics. It is intended to awaken curiosity into exploration of microcosms and macrocosms, showing how the discoveries of Nobel Laureates in Physics have broadened our knowledge and how their research has had an impact on our lives – from X-rays to the recent smartphone.
A mystical space, designed in dark blue colors with light and shadow, offers open and round themed stations, which provide interactive access to Physics for young museum visitors .The first theme table is dedicated to the question "What is Physics?" and displays objects such as a computer, a battery and a solar cell. In the area "Rays and Waves" a media table invites visitors to zoom into the insights of the human body. In "Matter" they can build an atom and can get a better understanding of atomic components. In "Electronics" electronic elements can interactively be connected. In "The Stars and the Universe" visitors can finally immerse themselves into a space experience: a projection takes them to the stars and explains at the same time the discoveries according to the famous Nobel Laureates who did space research.
In total the exhibition focuses on around 100 Nobel Laureates. Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson, Nobel Laureates for Physics in 1978, are for example related to the microwave. In the area "Electronics" Herbert Kroemer and Zhores Alferov, Nobel Laureates from 2000, are related to the exhibit of a mobile phone. Their lives and research results are graphically presented on transparent panels. Furthermore, the "Laureates Trail" makes curious about learning more about single Nobel Prize personalities: 20 stations with iBeacons are distributed in the exhibition space. By approaching a station, the visitor unlocks the profile of a Nobel Laureate on his smartphone and creates his own Nobel Laureate collection. The laureates are graphically animated on the app and, after being activated, they tell about their research results and about their lives. The Nobel Prize for Physics has been awarded annually in Stockholm since 1901. Until now, there have been 203 Physics prizewinners, mainly from Europe and the USA.
In the prologue area of the exhibition, the young museum visitors are shown an overview of important Arabic researchers and the long tradition of Physics in the Arabic world. Carefully designed dioramas introduce six personalities in detail, among them Alhazen, who back in 1000 A.D. studied the theory of light reflexion and optical instruments, such as the camera obscura. Visitors also get to know the person who gave the prize its name, the Swedish researcher and industrialist Alfred Nobel (1833–1896). A large-format projection shows him opposite the entrance, where he welcomes the young people.
The exhibition is in two languages (Arabic and English) and is conceived as a traveling exhibition. It is the second exhibition of the longer cooperative undertaking between the Nobel Museum and the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation. Last year, the exhibition "Exploring Life – The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine" was shown in the Children's City Dubai.
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"The Stars and Universe". Exploring space. Photography: Daniel Stauch
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"Quantum Physics". Interactive table. Photography: Daniel Stauch