Photos

The last piece of my series from Schmalkalden (click on the map) gives me the opportunity to talk about technical and scientific achievments connected to Thuringia.

In the small towns, especially in the southern mountainous region, craftsmanship reached a high level centuries ago. In Glashütte glass production started already in 1597. From the 118 biggest bells of the world manufactured between 1734 and 1902 40 pieces were moulded in Apolda. The weapons produced in Suhl for sports and hunting since the 16th century were highly respected even in royal courts.

The craftsmanship tradition of Thuringia gave an optimal base for the new industries in the late 19th century. The first automobile was produced in Eisenach in 1896 - 12 years before the famous Model T of Ford. A less known fact is that automobiles were produced before the WW I in several other Thuringian towns, too.

The finest products of Thuringia for a photographer were invented in Jena where Carl Zeiss und Ernst Abbe set up the scientific and industrial base of the modern optics. (The calculation of the famous Tessar serves as basis also for many good lenses of the digital era.) Now optical researches in Jena are focused on several exciting tasks. From a lecture in the Zeiss-Planetarium Jena I learned that they were ready in 2000 with the development of a star sensor which was capable to determine the position of a satellite precisely enough to send signals to the earth surface which can be used for determinig the GPS position with 30 cm accuracy! To achieve this accuracy the sensor detects the direction of five stars simultanously. (By the way the device was about as big as a 200 mm tele lens and as cheap as about 1.5 million USD.)