Moneta Austria The Secrets of Snow - 20 Euros Silver BE 2023

20 Euros AUSTRIA 2023

Theme : The Secrets of the Snow

Quality : BE (Belle Epreuve).
Edition : 30 000 pieces.
Silver 925 ‰ - 22 42 g (2/3 Oz) - Ø 34 mm.
Delivered in a case with certificate.

"It's snowing! it's snowing! from the sky, the feathery flakes, how quickly they fly. Like little birds that don't know why, they're in pursuit, from one place to another, while none can trace the other. It's snowing! It's snowing! We're playing happily on this heavy day! Yet beneath the seemingly chaotic nature of snowfall, so beautifully described by the American poet Hannah Flagg Gould (1789-1865), lies a surprising symmetry.

The German astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) pondered this with childlike curiosity when the snow began to fall as he crossed the Charles Bridge in Prague in 1610. This experience prompted him to write the first scientific treatise on snow crystals, Strena Seu De Nive Sexangula, in which he asks why, when snowflakes fall, although they are all different from one another, they always have a hexagonal shape. A fairly simple question, but one that no one had ever asked before and to which it took three hundred years to get an answer. Nevertheless, in trying to answer it, Kepler provided fascinating information about snowflakes and posed pertinent questions about physics, mathematics and biology.

The obverse of the coin features an enlargement of a snow crystal with a glacier-blue gemstone at its centre and polished edges. The reverse of the coin depicts a young woman in profile. A manifestation of winter, she is a snow princess adorned with a crown and cloak, both adorned with snow crystals. The background is partially polished around the crown and on the lower right-hand side.