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Another day another dollar (mander.xyz)

submitted 4 months ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to c/science_memes@mander.xyz

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[-] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 9 points 4 months ago

We know the speed of light; but what is the speed of shadow?

[-] KrankyKong@lemmy.world 10 points 4 months ago

He's pretty fast, iirc. At least he was in that one sonic game.

[-] sus@programming.dev 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

a shadow is just a silhouette cast on a surface, so it can move much faster than light. An object moving near the speed of light in front of a small light source that casts a shadow on a very large, very distant object could appear to move billions of times faster than light (though you would need an extremely bright light source for the shadow to be noticeable to the naked eye)

there's really no upper limit, just how far you're willing to stretch the definition of "shadow" and "movement"

[-] Illecors@lemmy.cafe 1 points 4 months ago

I've been pondering about responding to you. Since I can't see this as some sort of irony - here goes.

I'm sorry, but you're wrong. The shadow in your example would be bound by the speed of light, because the photons from the source of light are also bound by it.

A shadow is just a lack of photons on a surface surrounded by other photons.