For example, I’m sitting on my front porch which overlooks the town. Miles away I can see streetlights, signs, etc. How does the source project light to my location, yet doesn’t illuminate my location?
Holy moly friends, thanks for the awards and stuff. I didn’t think this question would spark so much interest, lol. I am thoroughly grateful for all your replies.
In: Physics
Well, not denying what others have said, but i have a slightly different take on this problem.
Light aka photon, likes to move in a straight line unless other forces or medium changes occur. Now take an average street lamp, when its turned on, gazillions of photon is rushing out on a straight line at every possible angle as long as it can go unobstructed. So from your perspective, say a kilometer away, some photons are directly reaching you ( on a straight line ) from the lamp, with nothing in between to stop them and some are reflecting towards you also on a straight line, somewhat brightly enough to see, basically the most illuminated area just below the light.
Lets make it more simple, Im pretty sure you have played with lasers once in a while, and they can reach extreme distances because all of there photons are running in parallel, with the least possible scattering, so it illuminates very low amount of area, but can withstand more absorption ( air particles ) to give a visible dot miles away, fun fact, the red dot of the laser you see is basically another extension of the laser that is reflected directly to your eyes, but the light loses most of its energy in the way and does no harm to your eye.
To add, some photons are possibly reaching your surroundings, but have no energy left to be reflected back to your eyes and make an impression of the object, only those that are directly reaching your eye is still powerful enough to make sense in the brain
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