what is the speed of shadow?
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Hello friends...
The shadow appears because you're blocking the light from the Sun to hit the ground. Therefore you can calculate the time it takes to appear dividing the distance from your body to the ground by the speed of light (300,000 km/s). This also means that the shadow of your legs appears faster than the shadow of your head, since it's nearer to the ground.
To make a numerical example, let's assume the Sun is in the sky 45° above the horizon and you instantaneously step into the sunlight. We want to calculate how much time it takes for the shadow of your head to appear. Assuming you're 174 cm tall, the distance between your head and the ground that light has to travel is about 246 cm (applying the Pythagorean theorem). Dividing this by the speed of light we get that the shadow of your head appears in about 8.2 nanoseconds.
Hope this helps you...
The shadow appears because you're blocking the light from the Sun to hit the ground. Therefore you can calculate the time it takes to appear dividing the distance from your body to the ground by the speed of light (300,000 km/s). This also means that the shadow of your legs appears faster than the shadow of your head, since it's nearer to the ground.
To make a numerical example, let's assume the Sun is in the sky 45° above the horizon and you instantaneously step into the sunlight. We want to calculate how much time it takes for the shadow of your head to appear. Assuming you're 174 cm tall, the distance between your head and the ground that light has to travel is about 246 cm (applying the Pythagorean theorem). Dividing this by the speed of light we get that the shadow of your head appears in about 8.2 nanoseconds.
Hope this helps you...
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