It has been a bit of a whirlwind of a couple of weeks. Somehow Thanksgiving snuck up on us. Rosemary Salt to the rescue. And now I have started my part-time job. That will get some income coming, but not nearly enough. This job market is brutal.
This week, as per the ChatGPT suggestion is the topic “Light.” 20 Questions culled from a total of 40 questions submitted by ChatGPT (20 regular questions and 20 questions with a significantly higher temperature to see how creative the LLM can be).
Soooo… let’s do this. On to the questions:
1. What are some of the most significant historical discoveries related to light?
Hmmm… related to light… I am going to take the angle of actual discoveries about light. The speed of light, the constituent wavelengths of light, the particle wave nature of light, theory of relativity, spectroscopy, and a boat load of other things.
2. How would life on Earth change without natural light?
Well… life on earth would not exist without natural light. Maybe there could be some kind of simple life forms around geothermal vents, but the lack of natural light would indicate the lack of a star which would remove the potential for gravitational influence from a massive sprehrical body to orbit which would turn noff the geothermal processes… so no natural light… not life.
3. How has artificial light transformed human life over the centuries?
It has allowed people to be more productive during the darker hours. There would not be a 2nd or 3rd shift in the manufacturing world without artificial light.
4. How does the contrast of light and shadow affect visual storytelling in film or photography?
Chiaroscuro draws the eye in and makes people determine the difference between figure and ground as well as shape and depth. There was the one guy in my drawing and visual organization classes who only did chiaroscuro-esque work… it got boring really fast.
5. Why do we often associate bright light with moments of realization or clarity?
Because when things are dark we cannot see them or at least we cannot see the detail associated with them.
6. How does light therapy help improve mental health, particularly in darker months?
Light therapy mimics the wavelength associated with being in the sun. And exposure to sunlight (even indirect for all your pasty white folk out there, holla back!) is shown to affect moods. By exposing oneself to light therapy, one is tricking oneself into not being in the doldrums of the middle of the dark winter. Much like methadone tricks a heroine addict into thinking there getting the sweet sweet release of the beloved H.
7. What are the environmental impacts of light pollution, and how can it be reduced?
Many animals are significantly sensitive to the presence of light, and if the ambient light around if high enough, it affects their behaviors. Also… it is really difficult to see the Milky Way with light pollution, and the Milky Way is awesome. The only way to combat light pollution is to turn off lights and/or use different frequencies of light for illumination. For example dark rooms can expose photosensitive photographic chemicals to red lights without the reactions taking pace.
8. How does the weightlessness of “light” objects change the way we design products?
There is a consumer desire to not be encumbered by stuff. The lighter a product is, the more potential there is for a consumer to not notice their possession of that object. This tends to work with most consumer products aside from blankets. Make them bastards heavy AF.
9. In what ways does the absence of light, such as darkness, heighten our other senses?
Darkness requires your eyes to take longer to collect light information and process it. When you have to rely more on the rods in your eyes (more light/dark receptors) than the cones (more color specification receptors), you tend to stop even attempting to process information from your cones. This frees up brain processing power for the rest of your senses to hit hard.
10. Why is the idea of “lightness” appealing in modern design and architecture?
Heaviness feels overbearing, so generating a feeling of lightness in architecture reduces the compaction that a heavier more industrial brutalist form of architecture would embody. Coupled with the feeling of openness is also the fact that we can use stronger materials that take up less space now, which maximizes the inhabitable area of a building.
11. How do light-based technologies, like lasers or fiber optics, shape modern communication?
Light is the fastest thing we know about yet. So, sending information via pulses of light is an attempt to make communication as fast as possible.
12. If light is both a particle and a wave, how does it feel to exist in duality?
I think it feels pretty okay about it. I have never asked a photon, but if I get the chance I will ask.
13. If you could bottle a single beam of light, what would you use it for?
A single beam of light would be infinitesimally small… I am not sure what you could do with it. The reason lasers work is because light is reflected back and forth until a could number of rays of light get into sequence with each other and multiply their power to become a tool… a single beam of light would be the propagation of a singular stream of photons. I am not sure that has enough energy massed within it to actually do anything. I need to ask my PhD Physicist friend about this one.
14. Why does the flicker of candlelight evoke such deep nostalgia or comfort?
I don’t know if I think that a candle light is necessarily a trigger for nostalgia or comfort. If it is, that is news to me, but it kind of makes sense. From the nostalgia perspective, a candle is most likely the first thing that a large portion of the population of Earth encounter that has a controlled flame. The first fire I ever held was a candle, not a match. As far as comfort, I think that probably has to do with the light quality of the light emitted by the flame of a candle. It is a buttery flame that flickers pleasantly. That feels comforting..
15. How do bioluminescent creatures use light to survive, and what can we learn from them?
My understanding is that most bioluminescent creatures use the light they genberate to attract mates. It is primarily for mating, The secondary reason for bioluminescence is to attract prey that are looking for mates.
16. If a single photon could tell its life story, what adventures might it share?
I think most of it would be really boring about how it navigated its way out of a star. My addled brain wants to refer to this travel form the core of a star to actually escape the start and propagate outward as “the random walk.” it takes a long long time for that photon to break out of the star. So, that story would have to be a coming of age story about maturing as a photon in the big star. It is estimated that a photon in our sun could take up to millions of years to break out. It is important to keep in mind that our star, Sol, is considered an average sized star, so that story could take even more time in a different star.
17. Why is being “light on your feet” seen as an advantage, whether literally or metaphorically?
Agility is a great thing. It is important enough that Gary Gygax considered it an advantageous enough quality to have that he made it a stat for the game Dungeons and Dragons. Being able to react quickly and nimbly can save your life.
18. Can light be “too bright” in life, metaphorically or physically? What happens when it overwhelms?
Light can definitely be too bright. Light can burn and blind. Too bright is real.
19. How does the concept of “light” as a weight connect to ideas of freedom or minimalism?
“Light” is often associated with the term “airy.” It denotes openness and the ability to move freely through a space unencumbered by objects.
20. If you had the ability to control light in any form, how would you use it?
Everyone has the ability to control light to some effect. Strike a match, flip a light switch,turn on a flash light, switch from day to night mode, adjust the screen brightness settings, concentrate until conflagration, do the ritual to make the sun rise in the east and set in the west, pour the salt circles to burn a soul in the all consuming fire of hatred, you know… light control.
To recap:
3 x 5 notecard sketch commissions are open
Inks and alcohol markers on a crappy notecard
You tell me the subject and I will draw it up and send it your way
Any subject… no nudity please
$10 a pop, Venmo, PayPal, Zelle
Other commissions as well, but those are more negotiable i price pending on what you might like
Email me at Scott@9thPointStudio.com
Examples can be found here
But… but… but… how will you make money?
Volume!
Sooo… Syria
That’s something
Interested to see how that region tries to stabilize now
Is it a frying pan → fire thing?
The doggos are doing good
Thanks for asking
Do the reddit thing
The Substack thing
The Medium thing
Hell, follow me on LinkedIn
Especially if you know of a UX job
Full-time, part-time, contract
This mortgage needs to mortgage and all that
Did you know people use “nauseous” almost completely incorrectly
“Nauseous” is to cause nausea
“Nauseated” is to feel the effects of nausea
So, when people say, “I am nauseous” they are stating that they cause nausea in others
The more you know
Pedantry! Woooo!
Have a great week everyone