The Greatest Showdown – Physics in the Spotlight (original: “The Greatest Showdown – Physik im Rampenlicht”) is the fifteenth classic physics show. It was developed and performed in September 2025 by around ten students, who subsequently joined the Physics Show Uni Bonn. A criminal count has stolen a container of dangerous antimatter. Three brave physicists set off for his mansion to secure the valuable material. However, the heroes must first overcome a number of unexpected challenges, as the eccentric count has already been expecting them. With their combined expertise, they face him in a grand showdown, while he turns the whole thing into a huge show – in the truest sense of the word.
Storyline
The arrogant Count of fx (“Effex”) attracts international attention when he steals a container of dangerous antimatter to prove himself a villain. Three renowned physicists – Emmy Owler, Louis Carnot, and Maxima Welle – sneak into his mansion to secure the valuable material, their life’s work. However, they are already expected. The count and his butler, Richard Fine-Man, lock the team in a hall filled with experiments. In a spectacular game show, the three physicists must solve physics puzzles to regain the antimatter. The count and his butler watch the proceedings from their control room.
The First Puzzle – Candlelight
The team discovers a candle and suspects that the candle flame must be extinguished through an experiment. Maxima, an expert in optics and electrodynamics, prepares a vortex cannon. Pulling back a membrane creates an air vortex that blows out the candle over a greater distance. The count is not satisfied. Louis, who is passionate about thermodynamics and explosions, presents a plasma cannon. An air-gas mixture spreads along a hose and blows out the candle with a loud bang after ignition. The count remains unimpressed. Emmy, master of mechanics, has built a potato cannon. A vacuum is created in a metal tube. When it is opened, air rushes in and accelerates a ball that completely destroys the candle. The first puzzle is solved.
The Second Puzzle – Visible Sounds
In the second puzzle, the team is tasked with making sounds visible. For this purpose, Emmy has attached a water hose to a loudspeaker. By playing certain sounds through the loudspeaker and illuminating the water jet with a stroboscope at different flickering frequencies, the water droplets appear to stand still in the air or even float upwards. The count emphasizes his demand for music. Maxima then connects a keyboard to a Tesla coil. On this, flashes of varying intensity reproduce the delicate sounds of their magnificent performance of Alle meine Entchen (“All My Little Ducks”). The count confirms the solution to the puzzle.
The Third Puzzle – Flight Attempts
In the third puzzle, the count demands a flight experiment. Emmy fills three balloons with air, helium, and sulfur hexafluoride and demonstrates that gases denser than air fall faster and less dense gases float. That is not enough for the graph. Maxima presents the Thomson ring experiment. An aluminum ring is placed on an iron core in a coil and flies up at the push of a button. To shoot it higher, she then cools it with liquid nitrogen at -200 °C and repeats the experiment; the ring shoots almost to the ceiling of the hall. Meanwhile, the count explains to his butler the complicated family circumstances he is exposed to: in particular his demanding mother and his cousin – the graph of tangent, the evil genius of the family – are causing him trouble. Finally, Louis sprays alcohol vapor into a bottle to ignite it as a bottle rocket. The count is impressed and satisfied.
The Fourth Puzzle – Play of Colors
The fourth puzzle tasks the team with a color play. After a short commercial break, Maxima illuminates a wall with red, green, and blue light. The color overlays produce yellow, magenta, cyan, and white in the center. She then holds an object in the beam path and creates three shadows, each of which blocks one of the three primary colors. This also colors the shadows yellow, magenta, and cyan. But that is not enough for the count. Emmy and Louis have built a “colorful campfire.” In a rotating cylinder, a fire tornado changes color several times due to different salts in the fuel. The puzzle is thus solved, and the three physicists can now turn their attention to their final puzzle.
The Fifth Puzzle – Test of Courage
With a challenging puzzle, the count tries one last time to beat the three physicists. Emmy, Louis, and Maxima are all given a test of courage. While the three are puzzling, the count catches his butler quietly observing the count and talking to his mother on the phone. Believing he knows what is going on, the naive count explains to the butler how he became such a great villain in his family full of pathetic losers. Meanwhile, Emmy has prepared a test of courage for Maxima: the death pendulum. Maxima holds a 25 kg pendulum in front of her face and is supposed to let it go without moving from the spot. The pendulum swings through the room and snaps back, stopping just short of her face due to the conservation of energy. Maxima then ignites a Tesla coil, in its lightning Louis is supposed to hold a fluorescent tube. The fluorescent tube begins to glow spectacularly due to the electric field. Finally, Emmy is supposed to put her hands in the fire for Louis. After she has wet her hands, Louis places methane soap bubbles in them and lights them. Despite the large flame, Emmy does not burn herself because her skin is protected by the high heat capacity of the water. The puzzle is solved.
Finale
The count enthusiastically congratulates the team on their victory. Triumphantly, he calls his butler, who is supposed to present the big prize – the antimatter. Even after repeated calls, the butler remains undisturbed in the control room. To his horror, the count realizes that the doors behind him have been locked. Surprisingly, the butler reveals that he is the genius behind this show and has lured the count and the three physicists into a trap. He turns out to be Erwin Schrödenberger, a quantum Ph.D. physicist who forged measurements and was suspended from Emmy, Louis, and Maxima’s working group. On behalf of the count’s mother, he spied on the count and tried to sabotage the show. He sets off a timer to detonate the antimatter and flees. The physicists build a liquid nitrogen bomb to blow up the wall to the control room. After their success, they try to defuse the antimatter. The only way to do this is to open the antimatter container and destroy their life’s work. To end his big show, the count realizes his task and defuses the antimatter in a spectacular light show.
Performances
- 3x September 2025 in Bonn