Special theory of relativity questions

>>7948467
tell us in what model you choose to describe light.

so far you seem to mix various concepts form various models and you have no idea what you talk about.

Go back to high school.

>>7948467
>And why isn't light from a close source blindingly bright?
Your question rests on a fallacy. If you stick your eye right next to even a common light bulb, it will be so bright that your body will instinctively want to close its eyes.

>>7948476
OP here. Again, all of the models and information given is from Einstein's special theory of relativity. And I obviously don't know what I'm talking about, because I don't fully understand the mechanics and properties of light. That's why I'm here asking :P I mean, I get the relation between time and light, but I guess I don't understand what light really IS. Does it exist outside the forms of matter that we already know about? (Solid, gas, liquid, plasma, etc.)

>>7948467
>So why doesn't light pass through opaque solid objects like photons do? (Are photons light particles?)
Photons are light particles. What the fuck are you talking about with photons passing through opaque solids?

>Why, then, does light diminish over distances if it isn't slowing down?
Why would the speed of light have anything to do with luminosity? Light diminishes over distances because photons are fucking tiny, and when they emerge from a source, their paths are closer together than at a large distance from the source. Light travels in straight lines, and photons are kind of difficult to get going in the exact same direction (that's why lasers are a big deal).

>And why isn't light from a close source blindingly bright?
Because different sources of light are not created equal. You would be blinded if your desklamp were as bright as the sun, but you have to lean in to see your dimly lit phone screen because making light takes energy, and your phone is not powered by a giant nuclear reactor.

>>7948512
>If the light travels through your retinas so you can see the world around you, where does that light go? Do we absorb it? Or does it refract off of our eyeballs?
Some of it bounces off, but the part that we see is absorbed by cells called photoreceptors (they receive photons) in the back of the eye. These cells go "oh hey, I just absorbed a light particle, better fire off!" and the optic nerve to the brain carries that "ding!" to the brain. Think like 1 photoreceptor being 1 pixle.

>When we see the color of an object, we are seeing only part of the light spectrum being reflected; the rest is absorbed by that object. But how? It it converted into another form of energy? Shouldn't my black t-shirt spontaneously combust?
The majority of light is reflected off of most objects. Objects tend to dissipate energy in the form of heat radiation and convection. Light from the sun does not carry enough energy to set things on fire, unless it is focused (more light in smaller space means the more energy in the smaller space can't dissipate fast enough to avoid combustion). Your black t-shirt gets warmer in the sunlight than a white t-shirt, but both are radiating latent heat and also transfering heat to nearby air molecules.

All of this has nothing to do with relativity. Stop smoking weed, you braindead fucktard.

>>7948494
Well what about indandescent light bulbs, or even the screen you're looking at right now? Those aren't enough to blind you, but the light you're looking at is traveling the same speed as the light bouncing off the wall behind your monitor/phone/whatever. What determines the brightness of any given light source, anyway? The frequency of the light waves? If so, then why doesn't the light slow down or diminish over a long distance like sound waves (which is a part of the same spectrum) do?

>>7948515
>But how? It it converted into another form of energy?
Forgot to answer this part: photons are packets of energy, and that energy can get absorbed by matter. When this happens, the electrons orbiting an atom jump up to a higher energy state (this is called a quantum jump, the quanta being the smallest unit of energy carried). These electrons can jump back down to a lower, more stable energy state by releasing that stored energy (converting it back to heat or light or whatever).

>>7948522
>What determines the brightness of any given light source, anyway?
Brightness is measured in lumens, and is the number of photons or the energy of the photons being released (can't remember which, may be different for different applications).

>The frequency of the light waves?
Frequencies have different levels of energy, but the difference of energy between different colors in the visible spectrum is laughably insignificant.

>If so, then why doesn't the light slow down or diminish over a long distance like sound waves (which is a part of the same spectrum) do?
Frequency of light has nothing to do (functionally) with diminishing over distance. Also, sound waves and light waves are not part of the same spectrum. Sound waves are mechanical, physical "waves" are actually atmospheric particles (air aboveground, or water underground, but also physical solids like bones or musical instruments) being vibrated. These vibrations are transmitted in a diasychain until they vibrate little bones in your ear that touch cells that start sending signals to your brain.

OP here again. I'm actually not stoned, I'm watching a show called "The Physics of Light" on Netflix. And while the show is kinda stupid (the Asian guy is wearing frames without lenses lol), it's making me think about these topics in ways that I haven't given much thought to. And correct me if I'm wrong, but photons DO pass through all objects regardless of their atomic density, right? That's why we can't capture photons and study them in a resting state, right? Or am I actually high after all?

>>7948522
>What determines the brightness of any given light source
The intensity of light waves, or the number of photons that impact a surface in a given amount of time determine brightness. It diminishes over long distances because the intensity of light waves from a point source fall off with the square of the distance from the source.

>>7948541
>correct me if I'm wrong, but photons DO pass through all objects regardless of their atomic density, right? That's why we can't capture photons and study them in a resting state, right?
That's wrong. When light strikes an object, it is absorbed. Light has no resting state.

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Hmm.. Ok. Why then does light have the ability to behave differently than all other forms of matter? You guys have been very informative for the most part, but I still don't get one thing. Given that the speed and frequency of light is constant, why does light decay over a given distance? If the universe is saturated with different light sources of different wavelengths, wouldn't our sky be constantly lit up by different colors? I mean, if it continuously travels from that source, all light should reach us here on earth eventually, right? Why is it that we can only see stars relatively close to us?

>>7948503
Yes, light doesn't matter. It just vibrates in place.
>>7948522
Lamp shades exist precisely because light bulbs are generally too bright to look at. Either you're in a timeline where light bulbs work differently or else you're intentionally making anti-genuine arguments.

>>7948540
So an object that is creating sound waves is actually moving particles of air towards the listener, which is physical. That makes sense. But you're saying that light passes THROUGH the same air without disturbing it, right? Otherwise the air itself would be illuminated and you wouldn't be able to see the object at the other end of the room. Also explains why light doesn't make sound. But how is that possible? How can light react differently towards different forms of matter?

>>7948574
Think of it like a shotgun, except the pellets fly perfectly straight forever. someone standing a meter in front of a shotgun would know he has been shot. Someone standing 100m away might get hit with one pellet. Someone standing standing 10km away probably wouldn't get hit with any.

>>7948590
>How can light react differently towards different forms of matter?
Are you asking why some materials are transparent and some are not? This was already answered in this thread. For transparent solids, the light doesn't have enough energy to knock and electron to a higher energy level, so it passes right through. For a "transparent" gas or liquid, the atoms are simply spread out enough that most photons pass through fine, but not all, for example it gets darker the deeper you go in the ocean.
I'm a popsci faggot myself so someone please correct me if im wrong

>>7948587
Huh? Everything you see IS light! But not everything is blindingly bright. Looking at a lightbulb is typically uncomfortable to look at, but is not bright enough to overload your sense of sight completely. You're knit-picking at one irrelevant part of my question. Someone answered that objects absorb most light but reflects the part that you see, but I don't get how that object converts that energy. I understand that light and heat share a relationship of some kind, but the light from the tv reaches my couch, but the heat from it doesn't. Why is that? Do photons "cool off" the further they go, transferring into heat and thereby weakening the light it gives off?

>>7948607
youre basically asking /sci/ to explain a semester of high school physics to you.

>>7948607
>not bright enough to overload your sense of sight completely
It is. If it didn't overwhelm your sense of sight, you would be able to see the filaments and make out details with the same level of specificity as you enjoy when looking at non-bright light.
>>7948607
>Do photons cool off the further they go
Yes, some media.

>>7948611
what high school did you go to, high school students learning the nature of light, that seems a bit far-fetched if you ask me

>>7948611
Dude we never covered this shit in my high school. And I graduated, too. I know that I'm asking a whole lot of questions, so I appreciate everyone answering my dumb ass :)Unfortunately, Idaho's education system is a lot like their laws: lagging behind the rest of the country. I didn't even get in to algebra until freshman year :/

>>7948611
all you ever learn in high school is rudimentary things and a lot of misconceptions

>>7948611
18 year old high schooler here. Can confirm, learning most of this in basic physics

>>7948658
That's lame as shit. We mostly covered Newtonian physics and elements of quantum physics, but not the "why"s. I didn't get a firm grasp of how this shit works. And I graduated 5 years ago, it's not like I'm some old guy.

>why does light diminishe over distance?
Light/ photons are emitted in all directions at the same time. That means, if we would look at light as a wave, we have a ball of light with a specific energy and the surface 4πr^2.
Now as this ball goes outwards, r increases, and thus the energy has to be distributed over a larger surface, meaning the tiny fraction of the ball that we see becomes dimmer with distance.
If we look at light as a particle, it's even easier. You have a fixed number of photons for the initial surface, which means as the ball expands, there are less photons per m^2.

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Hey /sci/, I am not op.
Out of general curiosity, if light waves behaves like in pic related, can't we then think of light particles as a particle that follows a helical path?

>>7948938
No