light and darkness!

sutupidmath

HI all, i just wanted to know what happens, or maybe it is better to say how does one explain where does the darkness go when the light comes in? in other words, say we are in a dark room, and suddenly one turns on the light, what happens to the darkness? What is the porper explanation for this??

Andy Resnick

That doesn't make sense; it's like asking where the cold goes when a source of heat is introduced.

sutupidmath

does this mean, that there is no dark at all, but it is just a, how to say, notation for the absence of light??

russ_watters

Yes, darkness is just the absence of light. So when you turn a light on, the photons released by the lamp start bouncing around in the room, 'filling' it with light.

sutupidmath

so asking questions about the nature of darkness is nonsense, right? It is a little hard for me to grasp this, since i do not actually have a good background in physics, i am quite bad at it indeed!

Mapes

It might be useful to consider this analogous question: There was nobody in my office this morning, until I entered. Where did the "nobody" go? What is the nature of nobody?

russ_watters

Yes, that makes it a meaningless question.