Tuesday, May 02, 2006

I've had a bunch of deep ideas swirling around in my head for the last 30 minutes.

for instance take this question:

what is light?

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it's easy to brush it to the side and say, "well it's light obviously", but that is simply what we call it because we don't know what it really is. what is it's substance? how does it move?

or try shining a flashlight on your hand from about a foot away. when you turn it on, something is flying at your hand at the speed of light and crashing into it (notice it can't actually go through), and you don't feel a thing except possibly (if you're holding it a bit too close) a little heat.

but what if a baseball hit you in the gut while traveling at the speed of light? You'd have a perfectly round whole right through you and the ball wouldn't have slowed down too much. so what is different about light? size obviously and weight, but if you say that, then you are acknowledging light to be a particle, which is possible, but slightly far-fetched.

for instance, if light is a particle, and it is shooting out of the sun and out of light bulbs and everything else, what kind of particle is it, and how does it "shoot"? Is it the extreme heat that causes atoms to disconnect from their molecules? Is that the explanation for the heat we feel? Trillions of blazing hot (yet ridiculously miniscule) atoms crashing into our skin? That is certainly one explanation, but what about the sun and the stars? How could atoms that are shot out of the sun travel the hundreds of thousands of miles through ice cold space and reach earth still blazing hot? Again we can point out that the size and temperature of the sun is many times that of the coil in a light bulb, but probability stands against it. Even though the sun could torch those atoms until their electrons were orbiting the nucleus at incalculable speeds, and then I'm sure project them at a far higher speed, the distance is huge, and i doubt that they would still carry heat if they reached us at all. Although if they do reach us, I wonder if that's where dust comes from? all the little particles of light now burnt out.

But if we decide that the Particle Theory is off base, then what is light? Maybe it is a wave, like sound, except that it is such a high frequency that our ears can't detect it, but our eyes can see it? That would explain how it can travel vast distances through space and not be "extinguished" as it were, and anyone who has put their hand near a large sub woofer knows that sound can be detected by our sensory nerves, so why couldn't (at a far higher frequency) we perceive light waves with our eyes, and identify them as heat when they are in abundance?

But that is also nothing but speculation, with no (current) possible way of proving or disproving either theory. In fact maybe light is something that we haven't thought up yet, and perhaps maybe we never will, but when you look deep enough it makes you look up in amazement and wonder that He created the light, and knows it well.

outs.

you should see the stars tonight
how they shimmer shine so bright
against the black they look so white
coming down from such a height
to reach me now, reach me now

you should see the moon in the flight
cutting across the misty night
softly dancing in sunshine
reflections of this light
reach me now, you reach me now

and how could such a thing
shine its light on me
and make everything beautiful again

and you should feel the sun in the spring
coming out after a rain
suddenly all is green
sunshine on everything
i can feel it now, i feel you now

and how could such a thing
shine its light on me
and make everything beautiful

and you should hear the angels sing
all gathered round their king
more beautiful than you could dream
i've been quietly listening
you can hear 'em now, i hear em now

and how could such a king
shine His light on me
and make everything beautiful again.

David Crowder.

Thanks davie.

I'm tired.

GN!

7 comments:

Delian said...

If that wasn't profound tell me what is!

Anonymous said...

.

joel sczebel said...

Good news:

No surgery in store for my ankle.
I might be walking (either limping or with a cane or something funny like that) by the time NA comes around.
And finally, I might be able to play a little soccer by the end of the season.

good stuff.

Aly Sczebel said...

who is not creative....?

Delian said...

yay for no sugeries!!

MrsRoper said...

wow joe...! that was a lot of thought! were you bored?

joel sczebel said...

I was really tired.