Part!, report in the Rheinpfaöz from June 25, 2014
The steel ball of Saturn is highly sought after by metal thieves. It has already been stolen three times. In the next few weeks a new one will be installed to make it theft-proof. “There seems to be another planetary path in Switzerland. “But its implementation is not to scale,” says Hennes Flörchinger. He is a teacher of mathematics, physics and computer science at the Dahner Otfried-von-Weißenburg-Gymnasium (OWG) and is considered the father of the planetary path. He realized the project nine years ago with his physics working group at the time. Since these students have long since left the OWG, the “Pälzer Schdernegugger” association now looks after the planetary path. Flörchinger is chairman of the association. Flörchinger is concerned about the railway's request to move the Sonnen-Stein 15 meters away from the railway tracks running there: the “Seerosentour” cycle path crosses the railway line at this point. It is feared that the large stone sun ball will disrupt the overview for cyclists and train drivers. “The railway probably wouldn’t come up with the idea of installing a traffic mirror at the crossing,” says Flörchinger. The current location of the sun is indispensable for the educational concept of the planetary path. Because it requires a clear, straight line of sight of 400 meters from the earth symbol to the sun sphere. If you stand in front of the bronze plaque of the “Earth” and look along the planetary path to the “Sun” and raise your gaze to the real star in the sky, the sun in the firmament appears to the viewer to be just as big as the sun made of sandstone. This demonstration proves the scale implementation of the planetary path. If the sun were moved to the side of the bike path, this would no longer be possible. When the planetary path was being built, the then Dahn city manager Manfred Schreiner wanted to have the sun at the Neudahner Weiher in the Dahn district, because Dahn co-financed the path at the time. But the viewing conditions necessary for this demonstration are not available there. FF