How fast is the speed of dark?

Question

I ask this question because I realized that films and movies portray darkness as a slow moving matter that eventually takes the light away. In contrast, films and movies show light instantly appearing as a ray of beam.

Answer 1

That's a thought-provoking question. Of course, the dark in movies is usually symbolic of something: dying, encroaching evil, whatever. I guess you could say that the speed of dark is dictated by how fast the light goes away. When I flip a light switch, the dark is pretty instantaneous. When I blow out a candle, there's always a bit of light remaining until the final glow fades and dies. The transition from daylight to darkness is generally fairly prolonged, with some interesting sky paintings involved. Dark is of course just the absence of light, not a real thing in itself. Just like silence is the absence of sound. Sound has a speed, but would you be able to describe the speed of silence? Anyway, you set me off on an interesting train of thought, so thank you for a question that I have never seen here before. I always enjoy contemplating something new.

Answer 2

There are two opposing views.

The objective one states that darkness is a void of non-light. Take a space which contains light (photons). Remove the light (capture or move the photons) and now you have dark. The dark never moves, so the velocity of dark is zero.

The subjective view of dark is that it is real and it does move. If this is the case then the dark must move faster than light. This is true because the light can replace the dark but never catch it. The dark always gets out of the way faster than the light can move.

Since the velocity of light is the upper limit of speed in the physical universe, then dark is not of this universe. Dark is alien or unreal.

Just remember that writers of films and movies often have 10 bullets coming out of a six-gun and have characters who can fly without airplanes.

Answer 3

Say a star 26 light years away suddenly goes dark right this moment. It will continue to shine for the next 26 years and then it will be dark in the year 2032. Even though it went dark in 2006. It takes that long for the light to reach earth (or dark).

Answer 4

Freakin quick man, you try finding it with your torch after you turn out the light. Click the light switch, out goes the light and WOOOMPH ! The darkness comes almost immediately, with just a little bit of greyness in between I think.
My guess is that it is maybe about as fast as light is, perhaps a bit slower. So how fast is the grey bit then ? Half way between light and dark ?
Aaaah the speed of twilight could be worked out by someone who is clever at that sort of thing just by adding light speed to dark speed and dividing by two.

E=Mc Spared and all that.

Answer 5

Que? Well, since dark is what fills the void when the light goes away it must move in as fast as light moves away. So I would have to say equal to the speed of light.

Answer 6

There's No Such Thing, Dark is an Absence of Light, but If you thought of it in perspective, it would be faster, because its always there. Light is more powerful so you oversee the dark.

Answer 7

Twice the speed of light. If a man is in bed with his girlfriend and her husband comes home...how fast can he get out the door before the husband turns on the light. HA!

Answer 8

In science terms, darkness doesn't exist as a separate thing - it is simply the absence of light. Therefore, it is not a thing that can be measured by speed. I.e. there is no speed of dark.

That doesn't seem to stop it from getting dark very quickly here in the winter though! :)

Answer 9

approx 98.9±0.3 m/s. is the speed of dark

the speed of light is 299792458 m/s

therefore light is over 3 million times faster than dark

Answer 10

186,000 miles per second. Just the same as the speed of light. There is really no such things as the speed of darkness, unless you are hinting at something racial.....if thats the case "GET A LIFE, BUNNY".