Transmission of Light

[Guest guest]

> When a candle burns, there is light.

>

> This fire can then 'pass' to another

> candle and there is the 'light of

> another candle'.

>

> From where does the light of the

> second candle come?

>

> When the wind blows the candle out,

> where does that light go?

>

>

> What is the difference between the

> 'light of the first candle' and the

> 'light of the second candle'?

 

Arvind

 

P: I guess that you'll understand that

you are guilty of the sin of

entification. You are entificating the

concept of light. And here, dear friend,

is where a good understanding of language

helps.

 

There is no " light " which passes from

one candle to another. Physically, there

is no thing called light. Light is a

sensation in the brain. Individual

photons exist, but they are not transmited

from one candle to the next. Heat only is

transmitted. The flame is not light, but

a stream of hot gases, and the kinetic

energy of those gases is transmitted from

one candle to another.

 

Photons are the only things in the universe

which are outside time. Some cosmologists

say that when all matter in the universe

decays, a perfect entropic soup of low

energy photons will for ever more remain.

 

Of course, if string theory is right, and

this universe of ours is but one membrane

of space/time floating in a super-universe,

which contains numberless such branes, a

collision is inevitable. The energy of such

collision, they say, created this universe,

and will create the next, in which a Pete

and Arvind will exchange these same emails

again. Welcome to Groundhog Day!