Light

Light is one of the wonders of life, so much so that it is sublime. When one thinks of light as being emissions of electromagnetic waves in the EM spectrum, then one can start to appreciate the fireworks of light that exist everywhere in the universe, including on Earth, even if we cannot see most of it.

Last summer in Taipei, I was walking with my mom on the street on our way to her friend's house. Somehow I randomly brought up the fact that I thought cellphones must be so weird for some aliens. I explained: If aliens existed on Earth and could see the wavelengths corresponding to the radio frequency signals of a cellphone, then every time someone made a call from a cellphone or received a call, the alien would be able to see rays of light shooting from the cellphone and going into the cellphone. My mom was silent for a while, and then she said that she had never thought of it in that way, and in that way it did seem really cool and amazing.

The way humans visually observe the world is limited to a narrow band of wavelengths in the visible spectrum. But if we consider light to be of every wavelength in the spectrum, then the entire universe can be considered to be filled with light. Cellphones are like lightbulbs that emit light in every direction. Radio towers can be considered as lighthouses, except with a different wavelength of light it is emitting. Satellites shoot beams of light to and from the surface of the Earth.

The sublime emerges if one tries to analyze what the world would look like if we were not limited to the visible spectrum. I think it's an amazingly fun way to think about the world, even if it was somewhat unrealistic way of looking at the world. But then, we could all learn from looking at the world differently once in a while.

-FCDH