Long Night of Sciences 2025

The Capriccio group vividly participated with three events at the “Long Night of Sciences” held on 25 October 2025 throughout Nuremberg, Fürth, and Erlangen:

First, our group member Eva Maria Richter dicussed with Prof. Daniel Köhn from Geology the question: “What have cracks between continents to do with broken cutlery made from plastics?” Their joint presentation highlighted differences and similarities between these two disciplines, particularly as Daniel appeared fully dressed with helmet, hammer, and compass and talked about his field-trips all over the world, whereas Eva was addressing the advantages of running our multiscale simulations from her desk. Finally, it turned out that geologists obtain fracture patterns at length scales of hundreds of kilometres – or even of continents – which are very similar to those we observe at very tiny scales of a couple of nanometres, and, most importantly, that we use indeed very similiar simulation techniques! Maybe the Capriccio method could give further insights into the breaking of whole continents?

Second, Eva organised a panel discussion pivoting around the question “How is it actually as a woman in engineering sciences?” To this end, Eva brought together female students, doctoral and postdoctoral researchers as well as professors to talk about their various experiences at the different levels of their careers. Very impressively, our youngest panel member (7 years old) reported on the grants she aquired for two science projects, one meant for kids at the kindergarden age and the other for a project in the context of  the “children’s university” in the field of electrical engineering. After all, this lively discussion gave important insights into how women are holding their own in a scientific discipline that is still dominated by men while simultanously motivating and inspiring girls from an early age to become engineers.

Third, Eva gave a very amusing but scientifically sound presentation about the question “Why does superman’s suit not tear?” Departing from some facts known about superman’s abilities to fly at highest speed, to walk through fire and ice, to resist to bullets, and to remain handsome even when wearing his high performance suit, Eva went on a journey with the audience to explore if such a supersuit could indeed be manufactured on Earth. She set up a list of requirements as typically done in classical engineering and in a next step, revisited available materials with properties that might come close to those necessary to design a supersuit on Earth. Finally, she concluded that most likely only materials developed using the Capriccio approach might fulfill the requirements!

All in all, it proved to be a successful night, filled with interesting conversations and positive feedback!