Physics can indeed be lively, colorful and "100 percent formula-free" – as was successfully demonstrated by Hamburg’s largest science exhibition which took place from June 1 to October 31 at the Research Center DESY. 106,000 visitors came to explore the 1,000 square-meter multimedia exhibition "Light for the New Millennium", among them many families and more than 450 school classes ranging from third grade of primary school to secondary school physics courses.

"We are very happy about the great number of visitors, which exceeded our expectations by far," says Professor Dr. Albrecht Wagner, Chairman of the DESY Directorate. "But above all, we were glad to see that most of our visitors were laypersons who were eager for knowledge and very open-minded with respect to basic research." Over 100 DESY scientists took up the dialogue with them. They worked in shifts to guide the 1,500 interested groups of visitors around the exhibition and answer questions concerning their research work. In addition, six physics students were present at a time to assist the visitors with the exhibits: 80 displays presenting original components, models and "hands-on" experiments. Besides their exhibition job, the 90 students selected from 45 different universities had the opportunity to take a closer look at the DESY research groups and to inform themselves on possible formation and profession lines.

"It is one of DESY’s main concerns to introduce young people to the fascination of physics and modern research and to kindle their enthusiasm for these topics," Albrecht Wagner points out. This is also the goal of the teaching material that DESY ordered from a school-book publisher, and which has been distributed among the approx. 4,200 German secondary schools. This material has been used by teachers to prepare the study trip to the "Light for the New Millennium". The resonance was good: More than 450 school classes, i.e. around 10,000 pupils, came to see the DESY exhibition. 86 out of 100 interviewed teachers declared that they included subjects from the exhibition into their classes, 89 out of them thought that the exhibition was "very well" or "well" suited for school classes.

However, DESY’s Expo project will have a lasting effect beyond the five months of exhibition display in another respect as well. "People often ask us if we will turn our temporary exhibition into a permanent one. Unfortunately, this is something we can’t make possible. However, this exhibition could be the starting point for a modern science museum in Hamburg," DESY director Albrecht Wagner hopes. "We also expect specific platforms and stages to open up for the presentation of ‘hands-on physics’ that will attract a new audience."

The central subject of the bilingual DESY exhibition "Licht der Zukunft – Light for the New Millennium" was a new, 300-meter-long superconducting X-ray laser which is currently under construction at the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY and which had been selected as one of Hamburg’s Worldwide Projects for the World Fair EXPO 2000. Visitors could witness the construction of the facility inside a 180-meter-long tunnel segment. In addition, the experimental hall which from 2003 on will house the X-ray laser research served as an exhibition hall where the whole spectrum of DESY’s research work was presented.

The DESY Expo was conceived as a well-balanced mixture between displays of original setups of modern physics experiments, and the presentation of physical phenomena known from everyday life. On the one hand, the exhibition offered lots of popular information on DESY’s research, on the other, the main emphasis lay on the fun of doing own experiments and on the personal experience of the visitor. For instance, the exhibition visitors discovered how physicists use huge detectors to measure the tracks of elementary particles in order to study the big bang and the innermost reaches of matter. The visitors could then try out and investigate their own "measuring instruments" for hearing, smelling, feeling and tasting in the exhibition room called "Sensors and Senses".

The DESY Expo was open from June 1 to October 31, from 10.00 a.m. to 7.00 p.m. daily but until midnight on Thursdays. The admission was free. Special events including lectures or "physics actions" took place every Thursday, they attracted a large number of visitors.

DESY’s Worldwide Project of the EXPO 2000 is a "free-electron Laser" for X-ray radiation and the only facility of its kind in the world. The DESY physicists make use of the amplification of the light emitted by tiny accelerated electron bunches to produce short pulses of sharply focused X-ray radiation. The X-ray laser microscope will allow the investigation of physical, chemical, and biological processes that take place in a few quadrillionths of a second on the spatial scale of a few millionths of a millimeter. It will be possible to take three-dimensional pictures of single atoms or to "film" the course of atomic processes.