Physics IV

I followed the Bavarian college preparatory curriculum with the following subjects:

• static electricity and electromagnetic fields
• electromagnetic induction and oscillations
• electromagnetic waves
• applications of nuclear energy

Excursion to the Institute for Plasma Physics of the University of Greifswald

You can visit the Institute for Plasma Physics of the University of Greifswald, where they work on nuclear fusion. Interestingly, my father works for the electricity company, that organizes the energy grid and they built an every two years, when the IPP conducts an experiment, they built an extra substation for this institute. A substation would normally be enough for a small city or part of a city or a larger region with smaller villages. Because the IPP needs an extremely high amount of energy to conduct nuclear fusion, they always tell the energy people 6 months in advance, to ensure that there is enough back-up energy supply, because otherwise there would be a blackout in entire northern Germany or even further away, as we have seen a few years ago when an Italian ship damaged an electricity line and there were blackouts in vast areas of Europe for days.

Ball lightning

Additionally I have concerned myself with ball lightning. Ball lightning has been a controversion topic for many years, because science is not quite clear what exactly it is. It has been known to penetrate walls and windows without leaving any damage, but it has also been documented to explode in some instances and it can burn people who get near to it. 

Because of these unexplained characteristics, many scientists used to discard stories about this phenomenon as "old wives tales". But in the newer history everybody is carrying a smartphone and videos of ball lightning are becoming more common.