Science tourism

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List of places for scientific tourism is a list of notable scientific places to visit worldwide. It covers interests in visiting and exploring scientific landmarks, including museums, laboratories, observatories and universities. [1] [2]

Contents

It also includes visits to see events of scientific interest, such as solar eclipses. A laboratory is a workplace and many have ongoing scientific research. They may not be open to the general public, or may only offer occasional special opportunities for public access. Many observatories are open to the public at regular hours, and have tours showcasing their astronomical research.[ citation needed ]

Museums

Europe

Northern Europe

  • Nobel Museum It has exhibitions about the Nobel Prize.
  • Sweden Solar System in greater Stockholm, contains the world's largest scale model of the Solar System.
  • Heureka in Vantaa is an interactive science museum, with different kinds of exhibitions about technology, physics, chemistry, medicine, astronomy and so on. Really exciting for children interested in science.


Central Europe

Deutsches Museum Deutsches Museum 1.JPG
Deutsches Museum
  • Peenemünde – A place where the Germans developed some of the world's first rockets before and during WW2.
  • Marie Curie Museum– History of radioactivity
  • Auto & Technik Museum in Sinsheim, Baden-Württemberg (southwestern Germany). Has interesting displays of many vintage and historic cars, motorcycles, other machinery, and an extensive collection of aircraft, including a Soviet Tu 144 and French/Britain Concorde.
  • Deutsches Museum – A museum of "everything technology" and more. A scientific and technical museum and one of the most important sights in the Munich area, visited by roughly 1.5 million visitors per year. Topics include brewing, computer sciences and bridge building. There are guided tours on specific themes and in different languages. There is a planetarium and two branch offices in other locations, which show vehicles that found no place in downtown Munich.
  • Zeppelin Museum in the city of Friedrichshafen offers a museum dedicated to zeppelins, and another to Dornier aircraft.

Western Europe

  • Science Museum London
  • The Down House – Charles Darwin lived here when he worked out the theory of evolution by natural selection. Darwin wrote 'On the Origin of Species' in this house. The house has also carnivorous plants and exotic orchids.
  • James Clerk Maxwell's Birthplace and Museum – Edinburgh's answer to Newton and Einstein. His equations unified the forces of Electricity and Magnetism and paved the way for Einstein's theory of special relativity. Modern technology in electricity and electronics, derive from Maxwell's discovery of the laws of the electromagnetic field, bringing a fundamental change in concept that influenced greatly the modern scientific and industrial revolution."

Southern Europe

  • South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology

Eastern Europe

  • Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics in the outskirts of Moscow there are a couple of sites dedicated to the Soviet and Russian contributions to science and technology. These include the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics, the All-Russia Exhibition Centre and the Monument to the Conquerors of Space.
  • Ostankino Tower – 540 m (1,770 ft) high concrete transmission tower, Ostankino Tower.
  • Akademgorodok – Out in the Siberian taiga near Novosibirsk, Akademgorodok (literally "academy town") was built during the Soviet era, so that the academic elite could conduct their research in relative freedom, prosperity, and isolation. The planned city with tree lined streets hosts several museums, institutes, as well as a beach on the Ob Sea, an artificial reservoir.

North America

Oceania

South America

Laboratories

Europe

Many European countries participate on the European Organization for Nuclear Research, which has his laboratories including the famous Large Hadron Collider on the French/Swiss border. Plus the bigger European countries like France, Germany, Italy and UK operate national laboratories. Most laboratories have open days for public visits.

CERN Aerial View of LHC accelerator and its experiments (Lake Geneva in the background) CERN Aerial View.jpg
CERN Aerial View of LHC accelerator and its experiments (Lake Geneva in the background)

North America

DOE Laboratories

In the United States of America overseen by the United States Department of Energy (DOE) the Office of science operates ten national laboratories. In total there are 17 national laboratories funded by the DOE. Most of the sites hold open houses where the public can come in for free and see how American tax dollars are invested in research. This used to include nuclear facilities, but those have been restricted since 9/11.

  • Ames Laboratory – conducts research into various areas, including the synthesis and study of new materials, energy resources, high-speed computer design, and environmental cleanup and restoration. The Ames Project purpose was to produce high purity uranium for the Manhattan Project. Its most notable faculty member Dan Shechtman won the 2011 Chemistry Nobel prize. Individual visits and group tours can be arranged through the public affairs office.
  • Argonne National Laboratory – founded in 1946 to carry out Enrico Fermi's work on nuclear reactors as part of the Manhattan Project. Today Argonne is a science and engineering research center. Argonne welcomes visitors age 16 or older to take guided tours of the scientific and engineering facilities and grounds. Tours last about two and a half hours and are by reservation only.
  • Brookhaven National Laboratory – a multipurpose research institution funded primarily by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. Located on the center of Long Island, New York, Brookhaven Lab operates large-scale facilities for studies in physics, chemistry, biology, medicine and applied science. It is the home of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, which first observed/created the Quark-Gluon-Plasma. Brookhaven scientists won 7 Nobel prizes including the Ribosome discovery (2009). The lab is open to the public on Sundays during the summer for tours and special programs.
  • Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory – a US Department of Energy national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle physics. Hence many components of the Large Hadron Collider got engineered and tested here. The Top quark was discovered in 1995 by both the CDF and DØ experiments of the Tevatron accelerator at Fermilab. The 2008 Nobel prize was given for the prediction of the third generation of quarks (Bottom and Top quarks). Fermilab visitors are allowed to visit two buildings on their own: the first and ground floor of Wilson Hall and the Lederman Science Center, Groups of six or more must book a visit by calling the center.
  • Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory – founded in 1931 by Ernest Orlando Lawrence. 13 Nobel prizes have been awarded to LBNL scientists, the most recent one (2011) for the discovery of the accelerated expansion of the Universe. It started as a particle physics laboratory, became involved for the study of nuclear matter and discovered 16 chemical elements. It is today a multi-program research site.
  • Oak Ridge National Laboratory – a multiprogram science and energy laboratory, with scientific and technical capabilities spanning from basic to applied research. ORNL is famous to host the Titan supercomputer. The Spallation Neutron Source is an accelerator-based neutron source facility that provides the most intense pulsed neutron beams in the world for scientific research and industrial development. Oak Ridge National Laboratory hosts thousands of visitors every year.
  • Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory – researches plasma physics and nuclear fusion science. PPPL is located on Princeton University's Forrestal Campus. The free tours are led by engineers and physicists who can answer questions about magnetic fusion.
  • SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory – does experimental and theoretical research in elementary particle physics using electron beams and a broad program of research in atomic and solid-state physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine using synchrotron radiation. It discovered the charm quark, the quark structure inside the protons and neutrons and the tau lepton (3 Nobel prizes). At this time, all public and educational tours of the laboratory have been suspended. SLAC hopes to have them back and asks to check their website periodically for updates.
  • Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility – the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility, which is 1400m in length and accelerates electrons up to 6 GeV. The most powerful free-electron laser in the world has an output of over 14 kilowatts. The lab has an open house once a year that includes a tour of the accelerator tunnel and the free electron laser.

Other Laboratories

  • Biosphere 2 – designed as an artificially closed complete ecology, and was the setting for research on human interaction with natural systems. The site is now owned and maintained by the University of Arizona, which conducts tours for the public. Beware that the scientific credentials of the initial project phase are quite unclear as it started as theatre group. For example, no input was taken from the Antarctic research stations, where researchers experienced extreme confinement.

Observatories

Europe

North America

South America

While the headquarters of the European Southern Observatory are in Garching near Munich, Germany the observatories are located in northern Chile.

Africa

South Africa

  • KAT-7 , MeerKAT , PAPER, and SKA Africa – The SKA Telescope is the most powerful telescope ever conceived. Its precursor, MeerKAT, is already the most powerful telescope every built. Most of it is to be built in Africa under the auspices of SKA Africa. The African precursor, MeerKAT, is already the most powerful radio telescope every built. The core of the telescope is located near Carnarvon, on the Northern Cape, with more dishes located in Botswana, Madagascar, Mozambique, Zambia, Namibia, Mauritius and Ghana.
  • South African Astronomical Observatory – The national centre for optical and infrared astronomy in South Africa. The Observatory has a fascinating history dating back to 1820, which is when our main building was constructed, making it one of the oldest permanent structures in Cape Town. Owing to light and air pollution in the city, most of the actual observing happens in Sutherland in the Northern Cape, about 380 km from Cape Town. Some of the telescopes in Cape Town are still used for outreach and public events.

Namibia

  • H.E.S.S. Telescope – One of the leading observatories studying very high energy (VHE) gamma-ray astrophysics.

Universities

The most prestigious universities generally attract excellent scientists and have fine science programs. University campuses are usually open to the public, though permission from guards is sometimes required, and there may be some café or cafeteria or mensa or restaurant or even a university shop on site. Universities usually offer public lectures about ongoing research. Otherwise, their seminars and buildings are reserved for the students and the working faculty including post-doctoral researchers or professors. On weekends or holidays, many universities require special permits to enter. Universities compete on a worldwide basis; hence, they are not ordered by geographical position or alphabetized.

Other

See also

References

  1. ↑ Kujawinski, Peter (28 May 2018). "Colliders, Sundials and Wonder: When Science Is Your Destination - At CERN in Switzerland and Fermilab in Illinois, there is always a sense of discovery — about the past, present and future. - Science Tourism - part 1 of 2". The New York Times . Retrieved 12 November 2018.
  2. ↑ Kujawinski, Peter (12 November 2018). "Where Will Science Take Us? To the Stars - A monthlong visit to observatories in Chile, Hawaii and Los Angeles revealed spellbinding visions of the heavens. - Science Tourism - part 2 of 2". The New York Times . Retrieved 12 November 2018.
  3. ↑ "Weekend Visits to the La Silla Observatory". www.eso.org. Retrieved 17 March 2019.
  4. ↑ "Weekend visits to Paranal". www.eso.org. Retrieved 17 March 2019.
  5. ↑ "Public Visits to the ALMA OSF". www.eso.org. Retrieved 17 March 2019.
  6. ↑ supports the out of Africa-theory
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