On Thursday December 18, 2025, NAT School students presented the traditional Christmas lecture to a packed auditorium. Under the patronage of Prof. Christian Pfleiderer and with the technical assistance of Sepp Kressierer and Fabian Eder, this year’s efforts culminated in the play entitled “Der Ringschluss”, or “ring closure”.
Combining elements of The Lord of the Rings, Jumanji, as well as gaming, four main characters are transported into an interactive game world based on Tolkien’s Middle Earth. Each of the main characters thereby transforms into the character they had selected in the supposed board game they had started to play. Notably, Prof. Kern (portrayed by Anastasiia Abielian), transforms into a hobbit, her husband Phil (Pascal Mertz) transforms into a wizard, PhD student Matthea (Delia Thalmeyer) becomes an Elf, and, last but certainly not least, the audacious HiWi (student assistant) Lara (Mesedu Gadzhieva) becomes a ranger. As instructed by NPC1 (Non-Playing Character 1, also known as “Elke from Quotientvalley”, portrayed by Anna Hu), the four set off to destroy “the ring” so that they can return to the “real” world.
On their quest, several challenges -- sometimes physical, sometimes scientific -- have to be overcome, including encounters with Ents (giant tree-like beings), moving stones, Gallium (Moritz Gruber), orcs (portrayed by Killian Sohr and Philipp Asbeck), and finally with evil Bauron (Frowin Wild). Scientific knowledge, as well as familiarity with Tolkien’s work, prove to be a bonus to survive in this fantasy world.
The jolly atmosphere at the event was set right from the beginning with mulled wine and lebkuchen being served by the Freunde und Förderer der Physik. A live band including woodwind, string, and percussion instruments brought the audience into swing and livened up the intermezzos. The enthusiastic performance was characterized by confident acting, sometimes also physical, notably exemplified by the very convincing performance of Gallium. The play had a good dose of humor with some puns referring to academia, neat scientific experiments followed by clear explanations, as well as creative costumes and wonderful masks, especially of the Ents.
Of course, classic components of the Christmas lecture, such as “beat your Prof”, did not fail either. Prof. Reinhard Kienberger demonstrated his musical skills on the theremin, whereas PhD student Philipp Wunderl used his arm muscles to generate current in an electro-myography experiment.
This year, the organization and coordination of the event was in the hands of Luk Heine, Laetitia Daubner, and Julia Penner. Of note, NAT School students were involved at all levels, not just the actors and musicians visible on stage. In particular, students wrote and produced the play as well as the music, selected the experiments and set them up prior to performance, organized rehearsals, designed the stage and costumes, and took care of everything technical (lights, sound, live video images).
In the end, the four main protagonists managed to cut the ring, thereby defeating Bauron. When given the option to continue with level 2 (“thermodynamics” and “statistics” = “horror”!) they all opted to return to the “real” world.
Looking forward to next year’s Christmas lecture, we wish everyone happy holidays and a wonderful 2026!
Further information and Links
- Prof. Pfleiderer, Chair of Experimental Physics on the Topology of Correlated Systems
- Student council of Mathematics, Physics, Computer Science and Chemistry, Fachschaft MPIC
- Verein Freunde und Förderer der Physik an der TUM
Press Contact
communications(at)nat.tum.de
Team website