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What is the speed of dark?
- Thread starter rialb
- Start date
What is the speed of dark?
I'm no scientist, but wouldn't that be zero if you're talking about the complete absence of light? Unless you're referring to the speed that the universe is moving (dark parts included) in contraction or expansion? Hell, I don't know why I bothered responding here as science ain't my thing. But then again, what the hell?
CaryWhat is the speed of dark?
If you know the answer to the question, why the hell or you asking it? To show everyone how "smart" you are? Or were you just trying to be cute? So explain something to a non-scientific type like me. How can the absence of light have the same speed as light? Doesn't make sense that the absence of light would have any speed at all, much less be equal to the speed of light.
Cary
Snow
Member
What is the speed of dark?
Oops - CaryP needs another JD! rialb asked, iggy answered. Nevermind the JD, have more coffee! >
<
I am no scientist either but dark can disappear as fast as light can go through it, and return as fast as light leaves it. Um . . . ok that's all the thinking I can do today . . . seems iggy is correct.
Must rest now . . .
SFWWhat is the speed of dark?
Originally posted by Snow Fire Watches@Sep 7 2004, 08:26 AM
Oops - CaryP needs another JD! rialb asked, iggy answered. Nevermind the JD, have more coffee! ><
I am no scientist either but dark can disappear as fast as light can go through it, and return as fast as light leaves it. Um . . . ok that's all the thinking I can do today . . . seems iggy is correct.
Must rest now . . .
SFW
Thanks for setting me straight Snow, my bad, but it wasn't the JD. Apologies to iooqxpooi for not paying attention. Sorry bud, got a little confused there. Must be the onset of old age.
Cary
StarLord
Senior Member
What is the speed of dark?
Rialb,
If I am not mistaken Ioquixpooi has hammered it. In this realm of duality, the speed of light has to be balanced by it opposite, thus the speed of light would seem to be correct.
However, this does present a conundrum due to the fact that measuring the speed of something that is likened to 'the absence of Light' would prove problematical at best. You would probably be measuring the instant that light started and stopped registering/traveling which leads to the fact that darkness is always there already in the absence of light.What is the speed of dark?
I should probably know better than to post on a science thread, but I've been mulling this over a bit and it seems to me that if darkness is merely the absence of light, then darkness would be static. No speed at all.
Since light has to be generated, and its speed can be measured, how do you generate darkness in order to measure its speed?What is the speed of dark?
Just take a shadow for instance. It is the absence of light from the main source(the sun) due to absorption and raditation of the light by the mass or compression of energy in front of it. How fast does light move? c, thus the blocking of the light moves at c relative to a stationary observer. I am not totally sure about this answer, but I have a feeling that it's correct. My proof? Imagine a photon, moving at c, of course. It comes into contact with a proton, for instance, and is absorbed instantly(I don't really care about the .000000000000000000000000000000001 nanoseconds that that takes
)When it is absorbed, there is no photon to move to the point that it would be absorbed at normally. An observer can only notice the slowness of dark when he is moving, because there is no light moving through the air to light up the day(for instance). As if light were moving in a negative form, you start to notice the non-reradiation of light at the speed light would move. So you may think of this as if an absorbed photon has a conterpart in the form of a 'dark'on, which is absorbed simultaneously relative to a stationary observer, and they are re-radiated from whence they came.