Dear DESY colleagues,

This newsletter is a special thank you to all colleagues who made the Science City Day in Hamburg, our first open day since 2017, a day full of research enthusiasm and excitement – and all those who couldn't be there! This newsletter is a try to reflect our tangible DESY-spirit during that day in an e-mail.

Have fun,
your DESY inform team

"What a fantastic day!"

DESY's interim Administrative Director Arik Willner summed it up in four words when he addressed the staff at the helpers' breakfast - still in the flush of a huge success: “What a fantastic day!” Willner meant the first Science City Day, where visitors for the first time had the opportunity to discover Hamburg's planned future city district in it's entirety. And because the DESY campus is the anchor of the Science City, this was the perfect opportunity for our open day; finally again - after seven (too) long years.

Fantastic: some 14 000 visitors were on campus. Impressive: more than 1000 volunteers from DESY alone were in action for the Science City Day. Fascinating: some 200 different programme items were there to fascinate fans of research. Full blast: 3500 ballons were inflated, more than 4000 pens and some 3100 wristband for kids were distributed.

Crowds, sun and science: our much-used word “radiance” took on a more far-reaching meaning on 1 June. Proof of this is the feedback we received - including on social media from external visitors as well as from colleagues who gained completely different insights into diverse scientific endeavors and activities at DESY on this day.

Friederike Eickhoff, teamleader of the Career Center for Postdocs, posted on LinkedIn: “Great stuff all over the campus. I loved the atmosphere, all the happy faces when entering or leaving the campus – and that applied to all visitors, not only the kids. It was great to be part of the helping hands. Thanks to the superb colleagues who organized this.” And Nina Martens wrote by e-mail: “Science City Day was an absolute blast! I'm still totally blown away and so are all my friends, relatives and acquaintances who were here.... Absolutely amazing. A thousand thanks for this fantastic event and the fantastic organisation.”

“The variety of programme items was enormous”, said Arik Willner at the helpers' breakfast, “ranging from high-tech to fire hoses.” And the atmosphere? “Incredibly cool. That was mainly down to you!” Willner thanked everyone for their special efforts: Riccardo Lami and his team as well as the security staff, stressing that there were no major incidents on the day; the Meeting Service, Matthias Kreuzeder and his team as well as the transport department for the logistical tour de force; the canteen service and the PR team led by Thomas Zoufal. Willner said, “You can't write what we delivered here into a job description.”

DESY Director Helmut Dosch joined in: “I am very proud of DESY and our staff: we have inspired people with and for our research who might previously have shrugged their shoulders as they drove past the campus on their way to an HSV match. And we have made also those of our own colleagues beam with joy who have finally been able to experience their incredibly exciting working environment in a completely different way. That was important after COVID and is even more important in difficult times like these. Science City Day was a day by us - and also for us.”

Great feedback on Instagram as well: “Motivated, friendly helpers everywhere who were happy to quench everyone's thirst for knowledge. Thank you, I'm looking forward to next time.” “It was the explainers and helpers who made the day what it was.” “A great team spirit among the DESY people. It was fun and I'm proud to be part of this team.”

Day of the open experimental halls: Our scientists took centre stage and faced the challenge of explaining highly complex but fascinating research quickly and clearly. Deepak Prajapat (photo right) succeeded in doing this with the “X-Ray Tape Experiment” in the PETRA III “Max von Laue” experimental hall: “We are thrilled with the response and keep our explanations as simple as possible. However, most people already have an idea of what we are showing here.”

A few metres further on, an enthusiastic Alke Meents - one of the faces of DESY's coronavirus research - captivated a group of visitors with his explanations of protein crystals (photo centre). “People are allowed to touch the equipment - but not to take anything with them.” And how was the enthusiasm received? “The great thing about a day like this is the attempt to make complex processes easier to understand,” said visitor Andreas Helmut Proth. “And that inspires me!”

In the FLASH building, many children were interested in free-electron lasers and femtosecond precision. “Children are more patient and courageous,”Arne Grünhagen, Maximilian Schütte and Sebastian Schultz agree. “We had a young girl here, maybe about twelve years old, who wants to come for an internship next year.”

“Is it going to go boom?” Admittedly: The longest queues formed at the various nitrogen ice cream stands - “we can't keep up with production” - and the chocolate marshmallow experiment in the AMTF hall. “Of course, the experiment is visually spectacular,” said helper Julian Keese. “But many people also ask about the physics background.” Physics is fun. An Instagram post reads: “I always wished for something like this at school.”

The superconducting magnetic levitation train caused eyes to light up - even among the parents. “It's awesome,” exclaimed a father who explained the phenomenon in detail even without a blue DESY shirt. “I studied electronic engineering. I get all this.”

In Experimental Hall V, we met Thorsten Vielitz, who explained the principle of the Gauss gun with a lot of fun. Three quick questions for engineer Vielitz from the undulators group:

What have you learned from children today?
“That the effect of the Gauss gun is also being used in the game 'Gravitas.'”

What was the smartest question?
“What happens if you change the order of the metal balls?”

And what impressed you the most?
“Three things: that there is so much interest in science. It was also interesting to find out what children want to know. And we got an idea of how to explain research in a simple way.”

Fun fact: Thorsten Vielitz also had a very inspiring physics teacher at school - a former DESY employee!

Watch out, DESY recruitment! Maybe one of the visitors was a future Nobel Prize winner, Chairperson of the DESY Board of Directors of 2064 or the future head of the carpentry workshop? Children were the stars among our campus visitors. Their enthusiasm for building bird feeders was infectious, their curiosity at the microscope boundless - and there was quite some audible disappointment when there was no more nitrogen ice cream.

Feedback live and on social media: Dr. Diana Rohrbeck said: “An amazing event for the whole family.” George Kolostoumpis, researcher: “Inspiring! It was an amazing day for kids. I saw lots of happy smiles and lots of fun.” A teenager: “I'm here because I wanted to see where my mum works.” Juliana Fritz: “I think it's important for the little ones to take in the atmosphere, even if they don't understand anything.” Another mother: “I am here to awaken interest in science in my kids." A father said, “My five-year-old wants to become robot builder now.” Hamburg's Second Mayor and Senator for Science Katharina Fegebank also brought her children to the campus for the “motivational event”: “We have real superstars in science here. And we all need role models.”

For the first time, the public learned about DESY's future project PETRA IV on Science City Day on location. Katharina Fegebank is already a passionate supporter of the project. “We now need a clear statement from the federal government,” Hamburg's Senator for Science said about the future heart of Science City. “PETRA IV has an impact and appeal far beyond Germany”. Top left: Katharina Fegebank with PR colleagues Heidrun Hillen and Gesa Braun. Bottom left with DESY Director Helmut Dosch and the new DESY Science Briefing about PETRA IV. The DESY Science Briefing is available as a flyer and as a newsletter (Check here for the web version) – brief and concise with the most important information on what is set to be the best X-ray light source in the world.

Of course, DESY and the Science City Day were also a topic in the Hamburg media, including NDR and Hamburger Abendblatt.

After Science City Day is before the next DESY DAY (the former SCIENCE DAY): we celebrate it on 13 November. All DESY people are cordially invited. Also: Save the Date! More on DESY DAY 2024 in the coming months on our various info channels.

There is a great enthusiasm from all sides to organise more open days again. And who knows what ideas will be taken up by the next time! Perhaps that of a visitor to HERA-Halle West - he wondered whether it might be possible to set up a cannabis plantation there. Our Administrative Director Arik Willner responded with a wink at the helpers' breakfast: “We'll think about it ...”

DESY inform team:


Editing and realisation: Kristin Hüttmann and Christina Mänz
Texts: Christina Mänz
Translation: Barbara Warmbein
Project lead: Thomas Zoufal
Dispatch and design: Stefanie Fahlfeder, Diana von Ilsemann
Fotos: DESY: Lisa Caspar, Diana von Ilsemann, Cristina Lopez, Christina Mänz, Marta Mayer, Barbara Warmbein

Contact: inform@desy.de