EuroScienceFun Coffee Hour

“Shedding light on the Equilux”
Celebrating 12 hours of daylight by sharing our favourite experiments with light!

Date: Spring Equilux (Tuesday, March 17th)
Time: Sunset (19:10 in Valencia)

Back by popular request, we’re having another experiment-themed Coffee Hour, where everyone is encouraged to share some of their current favourite experiments. Priority will be given to anyone who’s prepared to show an experiment live, but we’re also open to stories, links, photos, videos, or however you’d like to share.

We’ll feature experiments which feature light – this can be as open or flexible as you like – optics, colour mixing, vision/perception/optical illusions, magic, astronomy, or anything else you want to fit into the topic.

I’ve chosen to hold this Coffee Hour on the equilux, because I think it’s a really underappreciated event, and I’m surprised how common it is for people (even science communicators!) to falsely believe that the equinox is the day of the year with 12 hours of daylight. The equinox always has several “extra” minutes of light, which I thoroughly enjoy, and encourage others to appreciate and celebrate. 

Note, the equilux is latitude-dependent, so for many of you it might occur on March 18th, however I’ve chosen to celebrate on March 17th, when the equilux occurs in Valencia.

We’ll start at sundown, 19:10 in Valencia. Some light experiments work best in the dark, and besides, you should probably be outdoors having fun while the sun’s still up. Sunset is probably earlier for most of you, but starting at Valencia sunset time allows a bit of a buffer for it to get dark where most of you live before we start.