IV – INTERRUPTED EXPERIMENTS WITH SILVER NITRATE FOLLOWING THE COURSE OF ONE YEAR (1927-1928)

By tom April 21, 2014

Silver NitratePlate 16, Figs. 31 and 32 are two typical examples for the month of November,1927 and show this phenomenon to an even greater extent. The border line traced by Silver nitrate during the day is very clear and impressive, but especially in Fig. 32the part due to the night is void of characteristic forms. Instead a broad horizontal, black zone appears. The top line reminds us very much of the wavy, simple lines drawn by a night experiment carried out separately, not in connection with the experiment carried out during daytime. (Compare Plate 1, Fig. 2).

Silver NitratePlate 17, Figs. 33 and 34 show the same phenomenon for the month of December,1927. During the day there was sufficient activity of the sun to form a strong, character­istic day experiment, but during the night the specific forming process is lacking.

Silver NitratePlate 18, Figs. 35 and 36, two typical examples for the month of January, 1928,are definitely a further step in the withdrawal of the formative force. Fig. 36 looks completely empty as far as forms are concerned.

Silver NitratePlate 19, Figs. 37 and 38 two examples for the month of February, 1928. Fig. 37 reminds us of the experiment, Plate 17, Fig. 33 (December 1927), whereas Fig. 38 brings us back to the soft radiating forms of the spring months of 1927.

Silver NitratePlate 20, Figs. 39 and 40 are examples for the month of March, 1928, and return again to the display of soft, radiating lines with feathery structures and the formation of specific forms in the upper part of the pictures, due to the intermingling of the day and night experiment.

Silver NitratePlate 21, Figs. 41 and 42 are two examples for the month of April, 1928, and we find a rich display of formative forces unfolding. The originals had a warm brown colour in various shades.

We suggest that the reader places all the plates, numbering from 1, then 5—21on a table, and studies carefully the changes visible in these experiments with Silver nitrate between March, 1927 and April, 1928. Then it will be obvious that from March onward the formative forces seem to increase, become richer and richer, reach a certain climax, then decrease and disappear completely between December and February.They appear again in the month of March and definitely have the tendency to increase further in the month of April, 1928. This is a phenomenon well known to us, if we watch in nature, the vegetation coming to a new life again in Spring, developing more and more strongly during the following months, reaching their climax of growing,then blossoming, bearing beautiful flowers and then fruits towards autumn, withdrawing slowly, and finally leaving the trees bare of leaves when the land is covered with a blanket of snow. Is this process not reflected in the behaviour of silver nitrate? We may look at these pictures from a purely scientific standpoint and try to describe them objectively,giving figures for the rising height, and so on, but would such a description do full justice to the phenomenon clearly visible to our wondering eyes? Spring and Summer,Autumn and Winter are expressed in an experiment with a seemingly inert, dead substance if only we open our eyes to see this. Matter seems to come alive and talks to us in a wonderful language. We cannot fully understand or interpret these phenomena from the pedestal of a scientist, we must look at them with the loving eye of an artist,to be able to grasp at least something from the “open secret” (offenbares Geheimnis)to use an expression of Johann Wolfgang Goethe.

What Goethe discovered, as the law of Metamorphosis in the plant kingdom,becomes equally visible in the realm of matter. But it needs the loving eye and open mind of an artistic soul, which still can contemplate with the utmost objectivity the changes in the realm of forms and colour. The Scientist must become an Artist in his soul, to interpret rightly the result of these experiments.