I enjoyed looking at the different cars throughout Poland's history. They experimented with different designs to find which ones worked well and which ones didn't. The one where the front was the only door baffled me the most. It was neat seeing the old crank engines and then see the vehicles become more aerodynamic throughout time.

Propaganda and lies in Germany's Poland

Schindler's factory was very eye opening about how technology in communications can affect people's lives. When German started invading Poland, they made the Polish residents send letters to family members pretending that everything was great. The Germans use of a newer technology, Television also helped their agenda, they filmed the locals going about a "normal day" with great fortune and smiles on their faces; this was propoganda and lies, nothing more... I believe that if something like this happened today, the internet would be a great tool to let others around the world know how bad things were getting and it might have lead to other countries helping sooner.

Schindler's factory

One of the most interesting things that I saw while at Schindler's factory was the circular gray room. The writings seemed to be written by the survivors and talking about those who helped them after their liberation. Many of the quotes seemed to be about the survivors being treated like human being and being given basic amenities. Easily the most powerful room so far for me.

THIS IS HEIDI'S POST!

I found the globe at the university to be the most interesting piece of science we looked at. I enjoyed learning about the attempts to put together a globe including the americas without being certain of where they existed this showed the spread of new learning but not the 100% correct knowledge being shared. Even if new information was being learned back then it wasn't always right. The same is true today, but now if the information we get is wrong we have the internet and many other people who have the information readily available to fact check it. So even if mistakes are made we can avoid them becoming worse. Although the geographer messed up, he still knew new lands where being discovered and he jumped right on the opportunity to help share it with others at the university through his model.

At Auschwitz, one thing that stood out to me was the process the Nazi's had to transport and separate  Jews from their home to the concentration camp. As an Indistrial Engineering student, we talk a lot about having processes that flow from one step to the next without adding wasteful time. The tour guide mentioned that they come in on a train and then they get off and sort who should be put in the gas chamber or who is fit for work. Once they decide, those who get gassed go to the gas chamber and those who are fit for work go another direction. They continually do this process with all transports and also collect their luggage. This stood out to me and is the same sort of process Industrial Engineers use today minus the intent the Nazis had.

My scientific finding from Auschwitz is the gas chambers and how they changed from CO2 to Zyklon B. I found it seriously interesting that they used CO2 as an extermination technique. They found it was not time effective so they used a known insecticide that only takes a couple of minutes. The fact they took a rat poison and applied it to humans is something that was so inhuman and deadly.  

The first stop in Poland was the Jagiellonian University Museum. The tour was very interesting and very insightful. The technology that I enjoyed the most was in Copernicus's room. He was a student at the university and created a globe of what he thought the world looked like. The tour guide explained to us  the reason why the United States is placed where India is. This was because Christopher Columbus set sail to India in hopes to find goods. What we know now is he discovered the United States. Overall I enjoyed learning about the tools he used to create his version of the earth. It really shows how far technology has advanced through the years. 

A science related topic I found interesting at Auschwitz was the fact that doctors would perform tests on the human prisoners. They were really interested in twins because of the fact that Germany thought they would be able to figure out how to increase the German population. These tests were really painful and horrible for these people. They also used them to test certain drugs. As well as the first use of a gas chamber was experimented in the basement of the prison inside Auschwitz 1. 

At Jagiellonian University, a room I really liked was Copernicus's room. I found the globe that he made very interesting. Copernicus used his astrology background to map out where he thought all the continents will be in the future. The idea that he could map out the countries using geometry and a compass seems so crazy to me. He had no clue what the future would look like, but by using science he was able to predict a somewhat accurate world. 

A room that I found interesting was Copernicus' room in the Jagiellonian University Museum. There were some astromic instruments on display including an astrolabe, which was utilized by astronomers and navigators. Using the astrolabe, the ecliptic latitude and longitude of the stars could be established. I believe there was also different sized gold discs in the room and depending on the latitude it determined which size disc to use for navigation. Just think how frustrating  it would be without a GPS.

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