Jahrtausendturm is, at 60 metres (196.9 ft), the second highest wooden tower in the world, after the radio tower in Gliwice

Gliwice

Gliwice is a city in Upper Silesia in southern Poland, near Katowice. Gliwice is the west district of the Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union – a metropolis with a population of 2 million...

, Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

, which stands at 118 m (387.1 ft). It was established on the occasion of the Bundesgartenschau

Bundesgartenschau

The Bundesgartenschau is the biennial Federal horticulture show in Germany. It also covers topics like landscaping. Taking place in different cities, the location changes in a two-year cycle....

 1999 in the Magdeburger Elbauenpark in Magdeburg

Magdeburg

Magdeburg , is the largest city and the capital city of the Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Magdeburg is situated on the Elbe River and was one of the most important medieval cities of Europe....

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. The tower houses an exhibition on the development of sciences, which is supported by many descriptive experiments with which the visitor can interact. One notable example is a powerful telescope through which visitors can observe the distant clock-face on the Magdeburger cathedral.

Construction

The intentionally inclined designed tower leads its visitor through an exhibit representing 6,000 years of human history. The tower has six floors, five of which comprise the history exhibit. The individual floors are aacessible by means of an internal stairway, as well as a spiral wooden stair on the tower's exterior. The 8,000 square meter exhibition surface offers approximately 80 interactive experimental setups for the visitor to manipulate. In addition, the tower offers several hundred informational exhibits and diagrams. The exhibit is installed in chronological order. The Millennium Tower is in the Elbauenpark Magdeburg. Admission to the tower is included in the entrance price of the park.

Floors

On the lowest floor one finds exhibits related to the earliest cultures and the birth of human history. The visitor will find (among other things) an accessible Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...

ian dwelling, a grave chamber and a labyrinth. Exhibits are not limited to physical anthropology

Physical anthropology

Biological anthropology is that branch of anthropology that studies the physical development of the human species. It plays an important part in paleoanthropology and in forensic anthropology...

. The physical sciences and mathematics

Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...

 of earliest antiquity are described and represented in experiments, exhibits and diagrams. The second floor concerns itself with the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

 (500-1500). Here is represented antique world systems and medicine

Medicine

Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....

, simple machine

Simple machine

A simple machine is a mechanical device that changes the direction or magnitude of a force.In general, they can be defined as the simplest mechanisms that use mechanical advantage to multiply force. A simple machine uses a single applied force to do work against a single load force...

s and the science of early Arabia. Included in the interactive exhibits are pulley-blocks, a water wheel,and a human-powered impeller for pumping liquids. The third floor is devoted to the knowledge of the Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

 to early modern times (1500–1750). Here the visitor finds exhibits on mechanics

Mechanics

Mechanics is the branch of physics concerned with the behavior of physical bodies when subjected to forces or displacements, and the subsequent effects of the bodies on their environment....

, vacuum

Vacuum

In everyday usage, vacuum is a volume of space that is essentially empty of matter, such that its gaseous pressure is much less than atmospheric pressure. The word comes from the Latin term for "empty". A perfect vacuum would be one with no particles in it at all, which is impossible to achieve in...

, magnetism

Magnetism

Magnetism is a property of materials that respond at an atomic or subatomic level to an applied magnetic field. Ferromagnetism is the strongest and most familiar type of magnetism. It is responsible for the behavior of permanent magnets, which produce their own persistent magnetic fields, as well...

, mathematics, alchemy

Alchemy

Alchemy is an influential philosophical tradition whose early practitioners’ claims to profound powers were known from antiquity. The defining objectives of alchemy are varied; these include the creation of the fabled philosopher's stone possessing powers including the capability of turning base...

, medicine and conceptions of world change. Important wars, the important journeys of discovery and major inventions (e.g., the printing press

Printing press

A printing press is a device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium , thereby transferring the ink...

, the telescope

Telescope

A telescope is an instrument that aids in the observation of remote objects by collecting electromagnetic radiation . The first known practical telescopes were invented in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 1600s , using glass lenses...

) are among the main topics. The fourth floor shows the period 1650-1859. The floor is divided into the levels 4.1, 4.2 and 4.3. Topics include medicine and chemistry

Chemistry

Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....

, biology

Biology

Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...

 and sensory perception, as well as optics

Optics

Optics is the branch of physics which involves the behavior and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behavior of visible, ultraviolet, and infrared light...

. Topics here include electricity

Electricity

Electricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...

, radio

Radio

Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...

 engineering, caloric theory

Caloric theory

The caloric theory is an obsolete scientific theory that heat consists of a self-repellent fluid called caloric that flows from hotter bodies to colder bodies. Caloric was also thought of as a weightless gas that could pass in and out of pores in solids and liquids...

, fixed star parallax

Parallax

Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight, and is measured by the angle or semi-angle of inclination between those two lines. The term is derived from the Greek παράλλαξις , meaning "alteration"...

, Doppler effect

Doppler effect

The Doppler effect , named after Austrian physicist Christian Doppler who proposed it in 1842 in Prague, is the change in frequency of a wave for an observer moving relative to the source of the wave. It is commonly heard when a vehicle sounding a siren or horn approaches, passes, and recedes from...

, space and time, as well as genetic engineering

Genetic engineering

Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification, is the direct human manipulation of an organism's genome using modern DNA technology. It involves the introduction of foreign DNA or synthetic genes into the organism of interest...

 and the nuclear energy

Nuclear power

Nuclear power is the use of sustained nuclear fission to generate heat and electricity. Nuclear power plants provide about 6% of the world's energy and 13–14% of the world's electricity, with the U.S., France, and Japan together accounting for about 50% of nuclear generated electricity...

. Numerous experiments illustrate the topics. The fifth floor concerns itself with modern research in the natural sciences and medicine. Emphasis is on the general topics "microcosm" and "macrocosm". The sixth floor houses the observation platform.

Data

• height: 60 m;
• oval base: 70x50 m;
• wood used in construction: 5,500 m³;
• surrounded space: 61.000 m³;
• tarpaulin: 5000 m²;
• exhibition area: 8,030 m²;
• height of the observation deck: 43 m;
• steps to the observation deck: 243;
• length of the exterior ramp: 450 m