Palais de la Découverte was the first science museum I went to when I was a kid, it had impressive exhibits then some 30 years ago, and they just added even newer ones, keeping the old favourites. Unfortunately the museum is scheduled to be moved to a lesser and smaller location in 2020, losing irreplaceable history and impressive exhibits.
I've been to many science museums around the world, and this is one of the top ones in the world, and honestly the best one in the world in amount of cool big scale experiments they had in a single building.
When we found that out, we spent 1.5 days going through all the presentations they had during the Xmas holidays, and we saw most but not all of the static exhibits:
it is located at the back of the grand palais, an iconic building in Paris
The different presentations were definitely a highlight:
exhibits on magnetism, showing magnets lose their properties when they are too warm
more interesting: stream of liquid gas is susceptible to magnetism
supraconductive material, when cooled sufficiently will stay in a magnetic equilibrium
The museum's high power experiments (static electricity and electro magnets) have been there forever and are always a favourite:
nice generator, 330kV
go big, or go home
induced electric currents from magnetism allow for levitation, and it's hot
There were lots of other exhibit of course:
it's all about density, yes this is real water and a real bowling ball
Multiple sections on animals
the ants exhibit was cool
the queen
termites too
the octopus demo was cool too
it gets to open a jar with a crab inside
and eat the yummy crab
The 2nd day, we came at opening time to see some static exhibits before the presentations started:
We then went to see the excellent supraconductivity:
and then came the time for the full scale maglev demo
a bit of time to cool down the supraconductive magnets
and then it was Jennifer's turn:
There plenty of other presentations:
turning gas into solid
oxygen in the air liquefies first, and causes flammable liquid
safety goggles are for other people :)
they had bucket fulls of liquid gas to play with
After 1.5 days, we didn't quite get the time to see it all, but we made a good dent. The staff and demonstrator were awesome. I'm really sad that this museum will close forever in less tha na year.
