So What’s the Speed of Dark?
[thoughts from the Other Side – by Sha’Tara]
“Ok, so what’s the speed of dark?” (Steven Wright)
Isn’t that a great question? Indeed, since we know the speed of light, and “dark” is the opposite of light, should we not be able to calculate the speed of dark?
Some who know things – and there’s always some of those in the crowd – will immediately and brightly chime in that “dark” does not exist as such, it is just how we perceive the absence of light.
Well, that’s one answer. But it isn’t of much help is it? If dark is the opposite of light, and we know that light does exist, then dark has to exist, or it cannot be the opposite of light. Man exists, woman is the opposite of man, and we know that woman is not just a manifestation of the absence of man. If dark does not exist except as the manifestation of an absence of light, we must find something else to “oppose” light!
Any ideas?
Let’s just stay with dark for the time being. It’s convenient. It’s been used for centuries. It’s observable. It fills reams of pages of encyclopaedic flossophy going way back into the Bible and falling out its front cover. Dark is a wonderful substance. You can hide in it and get lost in it. You can do bad things with it. Romantic things too. Have thoughts with it. It goes on. Fun thing all around. The conclusion, ladies and gentlemen of the jury is, dark exists. Will the jury concur? I suppose it depends on the jury, doesn’t it. If they’re all afraid of the dark, they may claim it doesn’t exist, per se. So what? That’s a mere technicality based on morbid fear, not admissible as evidence.
But wouldn’t it be more impressive if you could tell how fast it moves? Wouldn’t that prove beyond the shadow of doubt that dark exists, that it has its own right to being there, being here, as something more substantial than a very dark shadow? Somebody else will say that you can’t know the speed of dark because, well, it’s in the dark after all and that can’t be seen. But that’s kind of silly. You can see dark just as you can see light. You can’t see light move yet you can measure its speed, so why would you need to see darkness move to measure its speed?
As the archenemy of light, dark exists. That’s my conclusion, and since the jury is still retired (and likely to be for a long, long time on that one) I have to go with my feelings on the matter.
So, to understand dark, we should talk about light. In a scientific way:
The speed of light in vacuum, commonly denoted c, is a universal physical constant important in many areas of physics. Its value is 299,792,458 metres per second, a figure that is exact because the length of the metre is defined from this constant and the international standard for time.[1] In imperial units this speed is approximately 186,282 miles per second. According to special relativity, c is the maximum speed at which all energy, matter, and information in the universe can travel. It is the speed at which all massless particles and associated fields (including electromagnetic radiation such as light) travel in vacuum. It is also the speed of gravity (i.e. of gravitational waves) predicted by current theories.
I drew the erudite above from Wikipedia and well, that’s what they say. Since they’re talking about light, and they are ostensibly in the light while doing so, it must be true . Let’s say it’s allegedly true even if I don’t understand the half of it. That’s good enough for this fancy flight, don’t you think?
So, light in a vacuum travels 186,282 miles per second. If dark is the opposite of light, then it would travel a – (minus) 186,282 miles per second because it’s speed would have to be the exact opposite to that of light.
This fascinates me. Imagine, if you will, that you know yourself to be exactly half light, half dark. Imagine you’re a slice of bread in the toaster and only the bottom element worked, see? Dark on the bottom, light on the top. What’s your speed then? Exactly 0. That’s zero. So, while everything else is on its way to somewhere (according to George Malley in Phenomenon and I concur: that’s a foregone conclusion) you are going nowhere. You are static. One little touch to a metallic surface, one little zap, and you no longer exist.
But that’s not all. Imagine travelling -186,282 miles per second: that’s travelling into the past, ladies and gentlemen. Yes, construct a reverse-time machine based on the speed of dark and imagine the places you could visit. Great-grandpa would be less than a blink at the instant you pushed the green “GO” button. In fact, so would the dinosaurs, not that they’d much care unless they could smell you and be thinking of lunch.
What a breakthrough! What a stunning discovery! What a mind-boggling theory! Calls for a celebration, next time the toaster breaks half-way down. Maybe that’s what dark speed travel can be based on, a half step, even if it goes nowhere, being better than no step at all and all that. I’ll sleep on it, call you in the morning.
Before I conclude – and Steven Wright says that a conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking, which I am seldom, here’s another Steven gem:
If your car could travel at the speed of light, would your headlights work?
Turn that one around and think for a minus moment: if you were travelling at the speed of dark, you would likely have your headlights on, but they would be pointing backward, would they not? And would they work? I mean, they’re light and you’re in dark. Would that cause your travelling machine to malfunction? Take the wrong turn at Albuquerque, end up in an implausible dead-end? These are deep and troubling questions. Perhaps better to remain in the half-light, half-dark state of no mind. It’s safe, it’s comfortable, it’s predictable.
Best wishes,
Neerja
I honestly did not know sooooooooooo, I Goggled it and........
Darkness is the absence of light. There is no speed of darkness.
I guess you could say that darkness "arrives" when light departs. So the speed that light "leaves" the observed space would be the speed of darkness; meaning the speed of darkness would be the speed of light, about 3.00 × 108 m/s. The same reasoning is behind the statement "there is no 'cold,' only the absence of heat."
Sounds good to me.
Peace, love, logic, brotherhood and blessings,
John Michael
Love ya!
Jane
Your discussion is quite unscientific, but in the realm of philosophy, fantasy, and science fiction. The prospect of dark being the opposite of light is philosophical and fanciful, but not scientific. In science, energy = matter. However, when physicists work the equation, they come up with a lot of missing matter. The theory is that the matter that's missing is called “dark” matter because it cannot be seen when looking at the universe with current visual telescopes (seeing light) and radio telescopes (seeing other parts of the spectrum).
There's a lot of dark matter out there according to the theory and I've used to power my interstellar spaceship in my novel, Alone? There is no evidence, that dark matter is going anywhere other than leaving, at a tremendous, velocity, the original Big Bang like all other matter in the universe.
Ron
In a conclusion to the speed of 'dark' is uncalculated at this point.
Light is calcualted because we seek it's probabilities. The black
hole that may be a key to how fast the 'dark' !!!
Persay the universe is illuminated with planets, suns, moons, stars, etc. A spectacle of attraction we seek is the light. Well, for anyhow that's my theory. Looking through a looking glass darkly ! Light is a blessing.
Lady Mary Ann
~W~