I just read about this but… can quite wrap my head around it. Is it even possible?
In: Physics
Uhh not a physicist but basically a shadow isn’t a thing. Specifically it is the lack of light in an area.
Say you have the world’s strongest spotlight pointed at the moon. Now, if a ball were to go past the light, it would cast a shadow on the moon. If the ball were moving fast enough, the shadow could “move” faster than the speed of light.
But the shadow isn’t actually moving. The spotlight is emitting photons towards the moon, and the shadow is what happens when you interrupt the stream of photons. The only thing moving is the photons from the spotlight to the moon.
Think of it like shooting water out of a hose. The water moves at a constant speed, but you can move the stream to cover a large area pretty quickly.
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