Echophysics

Echophysics is a museum of physics history in Schloss Pöllau near Hartberg in Styria. It occupies part of a Renaissance castle whose stone walls once housed a Benedictine abbey. The name is an acronym for European Center for the History of Physics. The building’s long corridors and high-ceilinged rooms now shelter glass cases of delicate instruments. A lift carries visitors between floors while preserving the fabric of the old structure. The museum sits on a gentle rise above vineyards and rolling hills of eastern Styria. The exhibition is called ‘Radiation – the exposed human’ and focuses on ionising radiation. Two main collections come from the old Vienna Radium Institute and from the work of Victor Franz Hess. Hess, a Nobel laureate, discovered cosmic rays in 1912 after daring balloon ascents. His reconstructed laboratory desk and personal letters sit beside Geiger counters and cloud chambers. Peter Maria Schuster, physicist and writer, launched the project in 2009 and the Victor Franz Hess Society continues to guide its direction. Visitors walk past racks of brass and glass apparatus that once measured alpha particles and gamma rays. A small theatre shows films of Hess’s balloon flights over the Alps. Outside, the castle courtyard offers views of the surrounding countryside. Inside, a lift and wide doorways make the displays accessible without altering the historic rooms. The displays explain how early researchers shielded themselves from unknown dangers while probing nature’s invisible forces.