Tonight, you and I are going to think outside of the box for a moment.
Light truly is a wondrous thing. Photons (the quantum units of light) are constantly whizzing past us, faster than anything we can even remotely achieve through current scientific capability. So humbling, this notion is. We can only dream of building an engine that would propel us as fast as light. Yet, could we not treat photons like taxis? Maybe we could 'ride' the light?
Could the secret to light-speed travel literally be right in front of our very eyes? It could be, but this isn't my main point of discussion. As they say in Hollywood, I've buried the lead.
Alternatively, I find the very nature of light to be somewhat deceptive. Why? Because we never see the 'real' universe. I'll explain.
Light travels at a speed of 671 Million miles per hour. To our senses, that's instantaneous. Yet, there is an undeniable microscopic delay. From the point at which light is reflected off an object to where our senses can receive it, there's a gap (albeit insanely small). Because of that 671 Million MPH speed gap, we have no possible way to verify that the object reflecting light is actually as we perceive it. We exist in a world with sensory data that's delayed and unverifiable. The 'real' world only exists within a realm where there can be 'instantaneous' light transmission.
Here's the twist - because the very nature of light can not be 'instantaneous', then the real world is completely dark and not visible. That leads me to one conclusion - the true fabric of our universe can not be seen while inside said universe. The only way to 'see' the real universe that we exist in is to view it from an external vantage point. And what's the only way to leave this universe?
You guessed it -- travel faster than the speed of light.
Concurrently, if one were to shine a light upon anything within our 'real' universe, it would extract that object into our unverifiable existence.
To put it mildly, we exist in the world of 1 ⁄ 299,792,458 of a second ago when our senses are running at optimum capacity.
Let that stew in your mind for a bit. I'll continue this discussion in a coming future post. Stay tuned.