Geek Heaven... It's in Germany

Munich’s Deutsches Museum has one of the world’s greatest science-and-technology doodad collections —and is a geek’s heaven. There are full-size steam locomotives, fishing boats, nuclear reactors, walkable suspension bridges, prototype x-ray machines and an original Enigma cipher machine. Then there’s the recreation of the prehistoric Altamira Cave of Spain, filled with prehistoric art, giant bore-diggers used to drive tunnels underneath the Alps and the antique car collection. Here’s a glowing testimonial from a devoted techie:

To me, the museum seemed to be designed by a group of crazy people, who were dared to create the most complete and audacious collection of scientific and technological displays anywhere. Some of the items they had on display included: boats, planes, diesel engines, generators, locks, artificial hips, hearing aids, printing presses, drilling equipment, machining tools, chemicals, clocks, telephones, computers, rocket engines, magnets, capacitors, computer chips, automata, mechanical computation devices, water wheels, steam engines, typewriters, television cameras, film cameras, radios, etc. They had everything. And it wasn't just that they had everything, it's that they didn't just have pictures. They had incredible reproductions and the real things. They had an actual ship from the 1800's--inside the museum--that they had cut open to show you what it looked like. The section on mining alone would take you 3 hours to fully appreciate. It had reproductions of actual mines, across history and across mining styles. Curious about the 6 main techniques of coal mining? Well, they reconstructed all of them for you, under the museum.

[Neal Ungerleider]

Deutsches Museum [Official Site]
Deutsches Museum [hatoum.com]