Potsdam’s Telegrafenberg is a bit like the Silicon Valley of a century ago — only hidden away in the forests of Brandenburg.

The concentration of geniuses per square metre was once off the charts. Einstein scribbled away on napkins here, a Nobel Prize was awarded for one of the most successful “failed” experiments in scientific history, and the famous “Potsdam potato” of gravity was modelled here, too. And the hill is still pretty impressive today: it remains one of the world’s major centres for geophysics.

We’ll talk about the director of the Meteorological Institute who passed out in the open basket of a balloon at an altitude of six and a half miles … although nobody really knows just how high he actually got. About an astrophysicist who mathematically described a black hole amid the roar of artillery during the First World War. We’ll find the “navel” of German geodesy, fall in behind two inseparable satellites, and discover how scientists at Telegrafenberg calculate how many cubic metres of ice have melted in Antarctica over the past few months.

We’ll start right outside Potsdam Hauptbahnhof. First, we’ll walk through the realm of the “arts and humanities”, currently being redeveloped by IT billionaire Hasso Plattner. Then we’ll head uphill to the “physicists” — geophysicists, climate scientists and astronomers.

Science made simple and accessible: no equations or prior knowledge required.