The first science lecture: The Light Course
GA 320: Spiritual-scientific impulses for the development of physics. First science course. Light, color, sound — mass, electricity, magnetism
Even as Feeling is intermediate between Thought and Will, so is the outer warmth in Nature intermediate between light and sound on the one hand, electricity and magnetism on the other. Increasingly therefore, this must become the inner structure of our understanding of the phenomena of Nature. It can indeed become so if we follow up all that is latent in Goethe's Theory of Colour. We shall be studying the element of light and tone on the one hand, and of the very opposite of these—electricity and magnetism—on the other. As in the spiritual realm we differentiate between the Luciferic, that is akin to the quality of light, and the Ahrimanic, akin to electricity and magnetism, so also must we understand the structure of the phenomena of Nature. Between the two lies what we meet with in the phenomena of Warmth.
I woke up this spring with an urge to study electricity. We live in an off grid schoolhouse - there is no electricity flowing in the walls. We’ve built small DC systems with AC invertors for our computing (i.e. work) needs.
Steiner makes a fascinating comment in the quote above: a proper study of Goethe’s theory of color - especially those ‘latent’ aspects - will lead us to an proper understanding of the two poles: light and sound on the one side, electricity and magnetism on the other.
The first small experiment in The Light Course, as it is so titled in English, is a simple demonstration of the way light dims into blue above and yellow below. Goethe’s theory of color describes this in detail.
The picture below is from Goethe’s Theory of Color:
Now, I purchased a prism set last year planning to explore these things. In a rapidly established afternoon setup, I cut a hole in some foamcore, and proceeded as follows:
The strange thing? I couldn’t see the effect through the prism at all. But it was completely obvious without the prism (perhaps because I cut a jaggedy hole in the foamcore?) so I took some photos and put the setup away.
Later in the week, I studied the photos on my phone (iphone) and could not see the effect. Planning to discuss the long footnote in the book describing the challenges of photographing these matters, but certain I had seen it clearly with my eyes, I uploaded the photos to my laptop (apple macbook) and found I could very easily see the effect - even with the photo unedited. What follows are examples of what happens with pushing and pulling the photo in Photoshop.
Moreover: I remember the experiment as matching the book (yellow below, blue above) but the photos clearly show yellow above and blue below. Experiment requires repeating and better note-taking. 😁
Do you see it?