[worthbeads]

You may know the speed of light, but what is the speed of darkness?


Just if you're wondering, I don't know, so there are no wrong answers... only stupid ones.

[RubyPitbull]

Zero. Figured I would start with the stupid answer first.

[rudi_in]

Interesting...

Is it possible that it has the same value?

If darkness replaces light as it moves away, would it not happen at the same speed then?

[Synnen]

The speed of dark is inching along.

Otherwise you bark your knee on the ottoman that someone moved to the middle of the damned living room and didn't put back so you have to go the speed of dark until you can get to a light switch

[Clough]

Maybe it's analogous to cold being the absence of heat. That is then, that darkness is the absence of light. Therefore the answer could be zero.

[Capuchin]

You can do a quick thought experiment to confirm that it moves at the speed of light: You have 2 light sensors some distance apart, and a light shining on both of them. You then close a shutter ("instantly") to close off the light. The light sensors should stop measuring the light at different times, depending on the distance between them. This should make it plain that it can move at the speed of light.

Now, is that the only speed it moves at? If you have 2 light sources and an area of darkness between them, then the darkness is not moving, we know that a lit area is lit because of photons generated by the source and those are moving at the speed of light. It is not the same for darkness, darkness has no source. Does this mean that it also can have no speed? How about if the light sources were co-moving? Would the darkness have the same speed as the light sources?

Obviously this is very unphysical, first off, how do we create darkness? It seems to appear from nowhere, this leads us to believe that darkness isn't physical, it's the absence of something physical, photons. What happens if we treat darkness as a substance and light is "nothingness"?
Well, we end up with dark sucker theory. This posits that lightbulbs suck up darkness, this leaves behind the light.
Further reading here: Dark Suckers

[worthbeads]

Wow, such interesting answers. And to think I asked this question because it was on someone else's shirt! :D

[AFguy]

Good question, even if it was on someone's t-shirt. I'll bet that was a late-night.. um, deep thinking that came up with that question. I was going to say that the speed of darkness would be exactly an Nth slower than the speed of light. On the other hand, why can't we have a 'flashdark'? I know I'd like to have one sometimes with some of the idiot drivers I have to deal with! :)

[NITESH KUMAR SAHA]

it is that speed with which you can take your life to darkness.it is directly proportional to mental disturbtion state no.(!) &inversly proportional to normal state no.(#).
so, v=k*!/# , k is a constant