Lecture

Friday 20 January
19.00 – 20.30
The Field Centre, GL6 0QE

Greenhouse or Mirror with Window? An Optical Approach to Understanding the Earth’s Atmosphere

Viewing the thermal regulation of the earth from the perspective of optics is surprisingly straightforward. Surrounded by a vacuum, the earth’s thermal exchange with the cosmos occurs entirely via light and heat radiation. The climate crisis is thus an expression of a changing relationship of the earth to the cosmos that can be described optically: the earth’s atmosphere is increasingly losing the capacity to be a window to the cosmos and is increasingly becoming a mirror. In this lecture we will consider phenomena, in part from daily life, with which we can develop a characterisation of the the earth’s thermal mantle.

Matthias Rang, Co-leader of the Natural Science Section of the Goetheanum

Book Launch

20.00 onwards

You are invited to the launch of Seeing Colour: A Journey Through Goethe’s World of Colour by

Matthias Rang, Co-leader of the Natural Science Section of the Goetheanum

Troy Vine, Associate Researcher at the Field Centre

Nora Löbe, Artist and educator at the Swiss Science Centre Technorama