Vol.06 Hamamatsu Science Museum Mirai-ra

【Nature Zone】
(Upper left) The Earth Monitor lets you learn about atmospheric circulation, ocean currents, crustal plates and other fascinating things while rotating a model of the earth. (Lower left) The terrain of ancient Hamamatsu was different from what it is now! Hearing an explanation of how the topography of Hamamatsu has changed since ancient times up to the present is totally amazing. (Right) The Hamamatsu Environmental Wall lets you discover the unending diversity of nature and creatures of the Hamamatsu area by moving your body.

【Nature Zone】
Check out these images showing how we look as seen by snakes! Snakes can see us clearly even during a pitch black night because they can sense infrared rays. This zone teaches us about the amazing abilities of living things.

【Sound Zone】
Sound has diverse properties and there are many ways to use it. (Upper left and upper right) A mysterious room where the sound changes. (Lower left) In the Doppler table exhibit corner, the way you hear a sound changes as you move away from the point where you first heard the sound. This is exactly the same experience as hearing the siren from an ambulance or fire engine moving closer or farther away. (Lower right) Check the range of low and high sounds you can hear! The range you can hear seems to depend a lot on your age.

【Force Zone】
Here you can learn about physical power and force that are deeply involved in our daily lives. Countless types of tools apply power and force in different ways. This exhibition zone really made me want to check out how the power and force applied by all these tools were discovered. (Upper left) Experience EV racing on slot car tracks! (Upper right) Try driving a car yourself! (Lower left) Visual pocket billiards can predict the movement of billiard balls. But hitting a ball to hit another into a hole was really hard. (Lower right) The relation between electricity and magnets is surprising and mysterious. This electromagnetic induction table shows you all about it.

【Space Zone】
(Upper left) Swing-by or gravitational slingshot was a really tough game. I played it over and over again. (Upper right) Send a plastic bottle rocket flying! I did my best to feed it air for the launch with my feet! (Lower left) Active space mission corner. I travelled to Mars and completed a vital mission! (Lower right) Immersive VR experience shows the inside of Super-Kamiokande!

【Planetarium】
The Planetarium Dome has a width of 20 meters making it the largest of its kind in Shizuoka Prefecture. The photo shows the optical planetarium projector. There are a lot of different topics here for you to enjoy, such as original live commentary programs with astronomy themes and powerful large-scale images. I began to feel that the starry sky and universe were something really close all around me.

Color Mixer. Move your body to create colors that answer the questions popping up on the screen! It was a lot of fun!

This Light Table shows some features of light. Make light from the light source strike the prism, lens or mirror. You will see how the light path bends or splits into different colors.

This is really hard to do! There are lots of colored balls in this space. When the color of the light illuminating these balls changes to red or green, you can no longer identify the original color of each ball! Color is really surprising and mysterious.

I played with these colorful shadow pictures. It was a simple but fun space to try!

How optical fiber works is also interesting! Technology for fast and convenient internet communication utilizes the speed of light and its property of traveling in a straight line.

Mysterious art using an illusion. Take a long and careful look to discover the illusion.

On the right is Dr. Kenjiro Takayanagi called the “father of television” in Japan. His desire was to research technologies that would be useful to the world 10 or 20 years into the future which helped him become a pioneer of electronic television technology. On the left is Mr. Heihachiro Horiuchi (founder of Hamamatsu Photonics) who studied under the guidance of Dr. Kenjiro Takayanagi. He laid the foundations for the optoelectronics industry by working to make photoelectric conversion into a technology useful for people and industry.

Here are the extraordinary men who started out by making looms (textile weaving machines) and musical instruments and then developed their companies into huge motorcycle and automobile manufacturers. Seen from the front are Mr. Michio Suzuki of Suzuki Motor Corporation, Mr. Soichiro Honda the founder of Honda Motor, and Mr. Genichi Kawakami the founder of Yamaha Motor.

Here are three extraordinary men who contributed to development of the musical instrument industry. Seen from the front are Mr. Ikutaro Kakehashi the founder of Roland Corporation, Mr. Koichi Kawai of the Kawai Musical Instruments Mfg., and Mr. Torakusu Yamaha of Yamaha Corporation.

Here you can learn the history of Dr. Hiroshi Amano’s research work. Believing that, “If I can do this, I can completely change the world,” he never gave up no matter how many times he failed and kept working on crystallizing a substance called gallium nitride.

I originally heard that since red and yellow-green LEDs had already been developed it would prove nearly impossible to develop a blue LED. Yet, some 30 years later, Dr. Hiroshi Amano and Japanese researchers finally succeeded in developing a blue LED. The invention of a blue LED has brought us new ways to create white light. Here you can learn how to make white light yourself by combining different colors with a blue LED.

Okay, let’s make a blue LED chip emit light! You first have to stack the various types of substances in the right order. A blue LED emits light by utilizing different substances in this kind of complicated way.

Here, you can make the incandescent lamp, fluorescent light, and LED light up by turning each matching handle. You’ll notice that the force needed to turn the handle is different for each type of light. The LED needs less force to light up. In other words, it doesn’t need as much energy as the other light types. This proves that the blue LED is a great invention. Now try turning the handles yourself to see what happens!