{"id":2925,"date":"2026-02-20T16:12:49","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T07:12:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/?p=2925"},"modified":"2026-02-20T16:12:49","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T07:12:49","slug":"if-your-head-were-the-sun-could-you-see-shadows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/2026\/02\/20\/if-your-head-were-the-sun-could-you-see-shadows\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;If your head were the sun, could you see shadows?&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>This is one of those stupid questions I thought up in high school to annoy people. I&#8217;m pretty sure I asked my physics teacher this. His name was Mr. Waxman and I think I had convinced him that I was crazy. I decided to annoy Google&#8217;s AI by asking it this question, and this is the reply I received:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-vivid-cyan-blue-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-497c466a0892e89bb140dbf54be1f5d5\">If your head were the Sun,\u00a0you generally would\u00a0<strong>not be able to see shadows<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-vivid-cyan-blue-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-66f105a56fc5856e799aa7f81898a0ae\">Because shadows are formed when an object blocks light from a source, they always appear on the&nbsp;<strong>opposite side<\/strong>&nbsp;of that object from the light source. If you were the primary source of light, every object you looked at would be illuminated from your exact perspective, meaning any shadow it cast would be hidden directly behind it from your point of view.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-vivid-cyan-blue-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-aea1e68cba1dce6e7a9993f8e22f8134\">However, there are a few scientific &#8220;loopholes&#8221; where you might still see them:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"has-vivid-cyan-blue-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-daf1095e98efc06242fcbca54f094ed0\"><strong>Brighter Background Sources<\/strong>: If there were a light source even brighter than you (like a nearby supernova) behind you, you could see the shadow you cast on other objects.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-vivid-cyan-blue-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-5c89ff3775dd1d1c65620c8b8aa1530c\"><strong>Shadows from Other Stars<\/strong>: While you couldn&#8217;t see the shadows\u00a0<em>you<\/em>\u00a0cast, you could see shadows created by other stars or light sources in the universe.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-vivid-cyan-blue-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-0d7232ae93b87529d6de6155bcfaa3a2\"><strong>Cosmic Ray Shadows<\/strong>: In a more technical sense, you could &#8220;see&#8221; a shadow if you were detecting high-energy cosmic rays instead of visible light, as you would block these particles from reaching objects like Earth.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-vivid-cyan-blue-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-e153c25ff4800f2b81315415fa74dc38\"><strong>Perspective Shift<\/strong>: If your &#8220;eyes&#8221; were on the far edges of your massive solar head, you might catch a tiny sliver of a shadow cast by a nearby object (like the Moon) due to the slight difference in angle.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-vivid-cyan-blue-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-74618ae6648d46b41927a8a9236e9130\">You can test this yourself: hold a phone flashlight directly between your eyes in a dark room. You will notice that almost all shadows on the objects you point it at seem to disappear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, I guess that&#8217;s an answer I can be satisfied with. I&#8217;m glad I wasted Google&#8217;s time with my stupid question.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is one of those stupid questions I thought up in high school to annoy people. I&#8217;m pretty sure I asked my physics teacher this. His name was Mr. Waxman and I think I had convinced him that I was crazy. I decided to annoy Google&#8217;s AI by asking it this question, and this is &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/2026\/02\/20\/if-your-head-were-the-sun-could-you-see-shadows\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;&#8220;If your head were the sun, could you see shadows?&#8221;&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[374],"class_list":["post-2925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","tag-ai"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1985,"url":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/2025\/01\/30\/monday-morning-windows-10-blues\/","url_meta":{"origin":2925,"position":0},"title":"Monday morning Windows 10 blues","date":"2025-01-30","format":false,"excerpt":"So coming into work Monday morning, I had to put up with this gay crap. The laptop had installed an update Friday evening when I left, then when I turned it on again it wasted more time. The computer couldn't be used for nearly 20 minutes. Let me guess: Windows\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;tech&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/KIMG2476-rotated.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":777,"url":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/2023\/03\/26\/my-daughter-playing-the-drums-for-mixed-nuts-the-theme-song-to-the-anime-spy-family-cover-by-higashi-junior-high\/","url_meta":{"origin":2925,"position":1},"title":"My daughter playing the drums for &#8220;Mixed Nuts,&#8221; the theme song to the anime Spy Family, cover by Higashi Junior High","date":"2023-03-26","format":false,"excerpt":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Oi5kgY-6K_Q With a smile on her face, our beautiful daughter Ulan tears it up on drums. This jazz song has a particularly complicated rhythm, and she does a wonderful job! The last time we saw her perform was last summer, and she was just barely doing simple rhythms on the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;anime\/manga&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/Oi5kgY-6K_Q\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":233,"url":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/2022\/06\/21\/cat-vader-having-fun-with-the-dall-e-image-generator\/","url_meta":{"origin":2925,"position":2},"title":"CAT VADER! Having fun with the Dall-E image generator.","date":"2022-06-21","format":false,"excerpt":"My friend Brian told me about the Dall-E AI-driven automatic image generator recently. The first thing I tried was Bob Saget on a pogo stick, and that did not work out so well. I tried a few other concepts (I'll show those in a bit), but the best so far\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;humor&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/dallemini_2022-6-21_12-59-24.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1139,"url":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/2023\/08\/24\/my-star-wars-rebel-fleet-plamo-diorama-is-nearly-complete\/","url_meta":{"origin":2925,"position":3},"title":"My Star Wars Rebel fleet plamo diorama is nearly complete","date":"2023-08-24","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been slowly working on this project for seven years. It started out with me just wanting to build and light up the Rebel Transport. This was back when I worked for Aoshima. I had wired it for lighting, took it to work to show a coworker, then placed it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;modeling&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/rebelfleet1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":334,"url":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/2022\/07\/28\/commemorating-the-40th-anniversary-of-1982-the-best-year-for-science-fiction\/","url_meta":{"origin":2925,"position":4},"title":"Commemorating the 40th anniversary of 1982: the best year for science fiction","date":"2022-07-28","format":false,"excerpt":"Up for some science fiction movie viewing for summer? 1982 was the most prolific movie for science fiction films. I have set about collecting Japanese promotional flyers (chirashi) from Yahoo Auctions Japan. Here they are. Blade Runner Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan Tron The Thing. In Japanese, the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;anime\/manga&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/bladerunner.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":931,"url":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/2023\/05\/25\/murtop-a-clever-neo-retro-80s-style-arcade-game-on-steam\/","url_meta":{"origin":2925,"position":5},"title":"Murtop, a clever neo-retro &#8217;80s-style arcade game on Steam","date":"2023-05-25","format":false,"excerpt":"I recently discovered a game publisher called Flynn's Arcade (awesome name!). Basically, the game is a cross between Dig Dug and Bomberman. You play as a bunny rabbit that poops bombs. And no, I'm not being silly. the game actually says that you poop bombs by pressing the button! The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;video games&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/20230523221719_1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2925"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2926,"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2925\/revisions\/2926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}