Darkness
Darkness, the polar opposite to brightness, is understood as a lack of illumination or an absence of visible light.
Humans are unable to distinguish color in conditions of either high brightness or darkness.[1] In conditions of insufficient light, perception is achromatic and ultimately, black.
The emotional response to darkness has generated metaphorical usages of the term in many cultures.
Complete darkness is when the sun is more than 18 degrees below the horizon.
Contents
Scientific[edit]
Perception[edit]
The perception of darkness differs from the mere absence of light due to the effects of after images on perception. In perceiving, the eye is active, and the part of the retina that is unstimulated produces a complementary afterimage.[2]
Physics[edit]
In terms of physics, an object is said to be dark when it absorbs photons, causing it to appear dim compared to other objects. For example, matte black paint does not reflect much visible light and appears dark, whereas white paint reflects lots of light and appears bright.[3] For more information see color. An object may appear dark, but it may be bright at a frequency that humans cannot perceive.
A dark area has limited light sources, making things hard to see. Exposure to alternating light and darkness (night and day) has caused several evolutionary adaptations to darkness. When a vertebrate, like a human, enters a dark area, its pupils dilate, allowing more light to enter the eye and improving night vision. Also, the light detecting cells in the human eye (rods and cones) will regenerate more unbleached rhodopsin when adapting to darkness.
One scientific measure of darkness is the Bortle Dark-Sky Scale, which indicates the night sky's and stars' brightness at a particular location, and the observability of celestial objects at that location. (See also: Sky brightness)
Technical[edit]
The color of a point, on a standard 24-bit computer display, is defined by three RGB (red, green, blue) values, each ranging from 0-255. When the red, green, and blue components of a pixel are fully illuminated (255,255,255), the pixel appears white; when all three components are unilluminated (0,0,0), the pixel appears black.
Cultural[edit]
Artistic[edit]
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Artists use darkness to emphasize and contrast the presence of light. Darkness can be used as a counterpoint to areas of lightness to create leading lines and voids. Such shapes draw the eye around areas of the painting. Shadows add depth and perspective to a painting. See chiaroscuro for a discussion of the uses of such contrasts in visual media.
Color paints are mixed together to create darkness, because each color absorbs certain frequencies of light. Theoretically, mixing together the three primary colors, or the three secondary colors, will absorb all visible light and create black. In practice it is difficult to prevent the mixture from taking on a brown tint.
Literature[edit]
As a poetic term in the Western world, darkness is used to connote the presence of shadows, evil, and foreboding, or in modern parlance, to connote that a story is grim, heavy, and/or depressing.
Religion[edit]
The Holy Bible presents the first written account and mention of "darkness" in the literary world, and that account was penned in the Hebrew language, using the Hebrew word חשד [kho-shek], from which the English translators derived "darkness". The Scriptures, though attesting to the Biblical teaching of a creation in saying, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Genesis 1:1), the very next verse does not refer to "darkness" being created within that first act of God, but simply notes that "the earth" that was created "in the beginning" (vs. 1) "was without form, and void; and darkness WAS upon the face of the deep" (Genesis 1:2) without locating or defining what the Scriptures meant by "the deep". What ever "the deep" is a reference to astronomically, the second verse of the Bible, when mentioning "darkness" for the first time in human history, simply stated as a matter of common fact, that "darkness was upon the face of the deep". This first mention of "darkness" in Genesis 1:2, is then completed with this ending statement concerning "the deep", that "the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters". Howbeit, though darkness is mentioned tense wise as "darkness was", the next verse highlights the first spoken oracle of God Almighty as "And God said, Let there BE LIGHT: and THERE WAS Light" (Genesis 1:3). (Second Epistle to the Corinthians 4:6) expounds and further clarifies that first oracle of God, saying "For God, Who commanded the Light to SHINE OUT OF DARKNESS", sets forth the science of theology as admitting that "darkness WAS" existent before LIGHT was mentioned, and that "God commanded the Light to SHINE OUT OF darkness". That theological science does not negate the pre-creative existence of "Light" as opposed to "darkness", but only that "God commanded the Light to shine out of darkness" (Second Epistle to the Corinthians 4:6), which "darkness WAS" by oracle of God already in existence, and by referential statement encompassed "the Light" (Genesis 1:3) from whence "the Light" shone out of darkness from this comparative link of the Biblical references thus cited: "For God commanded the Light to shine out of darkness...And God said, Let there be Light: and there WAS LIGHT" (2 Corinthians 4:6 c.f. Genesis 1:3). This first creation narrative in Christianity also notes the theological science that places "darkness" and "Light" in a definitive created act of God, whereby the existence of both were four (4) days before God created the sun and moon, and "set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth" (Genesis 1:17). True science, defined throughout the ages as "that body of demonstrative, observable and producible facts" continues to deny the Biblical account of the origin of "darkness" and "light", though adhering daily to that same Biblical narrative in their scientific admissions to the existence of what the Bible first called "Day, and...Night" (Genesis 1:5). Scientists of every persuasion also continue to theorize about both "darkness" and "light", while acknowledging the Biblical science of that first creative narrative that light does shine out of darkness, for which (John 1:5) attested to over 2,000 years ago in the present tense that "the Light shineth in darkness (present tense); and the darkness comprehended it not" (past tense). That theological change in tense within the same verse highlights the Biblical scientific positional statement that "the darkness is PAST, and the True Light NOW shineth" (1 John 2:8). Science admits such past and present tense positional astrology, in that the existence of "light" whether "shining in" (John 1:5) or "out of" (Second Epistle to the Corinthians 4:6) "darkness" is both present tense (John 1:5) and past (Genesis 1:3) in that its present tense appearance NOW, is a present tense scientific revelation that in reality, this same light originates as much as it also originated in "time past" (Hebrews 1:1) in the same exact darkness that still exists from which man's present tense eye NOW sees it shining in and out of said darkness. Thus, although both light and darkness are included in the comprehensive works of the almighty God, darkness is set forth in the Bible as evil, while Light is personified as good. Darkness as evil is "the second to last plague" (Exodus 10:21/ Revelation 16:10), and the location of "weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 8:12). As such, the Bible notes the eternal existence of "darkness" (Jude 13), even when also attesting that "Heaven and earth shall pass away" (Matthew 24:35/ Mark 13:31/ Luke 21:33).
The Qur'an has been interpreted to say that those who transgress the bounds of what is right are doomed to "burning despair and ice-cold darkness" (Nab 78.25).[4]
Philosophy[edit]
In Chinese philosophy, Yin is the complementary feminine part of the Taijitu and is represented by a dark lobe.
Poetry[edit]
The use of darkness as a rhetorical device has a long-standing tradition. Shakespeare, working in the 16th and 17th centuries, made a character called the "prince of darkness" (King Lear: III, iv) and gave darkness jaws with which to devour love. (A Midsummer Night's Dream: I, i)[5] Chaucer, a 14th-century Middle English writer of The Canterbury Tales, wrote that knights must cast away the "workes of darkness".[6] In The Divine Comedy, Dante described hell as "solid darkness stain'd".[7]
Language[edit]
In Old English there were three words that could mean darkness: heolstor, genip, and sceadu.[8] Heolstor also meant "hiding-place" and became holster. Genip meant "mist" and fell out of use like many strong verbs. It is however still used in the Dutch saying "in het geniep" which means secretly. Sceadu meant "shadow" and remained in use. The word dark eventually evolved from the word deorc.[9]
Greek mythology[edit]
Erebus was a primordial deity in Greek mythology, representing the personification of darkness.
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ "W. Wundt (1907): Outlines of Psychology - 6. Pure sensations". uni-leipzig.de.
- ^ Horner, David T. (2000). Demonstrations of Color Perception and the Importance of Contours, Handbook for Teaching Introductory Psychology. 2. Texas: Psychology Press. p. 217.
Afterimages are the complementary hue of the adapting stimulus and trichromatic theory fails to account for this fact
- ^ Mantese, Lucymarie (March 2000). "Photon-Driven Localization: How Materials Really Absorb Light". American Physical Society. Retrieved 2007-01-21.
- ^ "Online translation of The Quran". Retrieved November 2010. Check date values in:
|access-date=(help) - ^ Shakespeare, William. "The Complete Works". The Tech, MIT.
- ^ Chaucer, Geoffrey (14th century). The Canterbury Tales, and Other Poems. The Second Nun's Tale. Check date values in:
|date=(help) - ^ Alighieri, Dante; Francis, Henry, translator (14th century). The Divine Comedy. Check date values in:
|date=(help) - ^ Mitchell, Bruce; Fred C. Robinson (2001). A Guide to Old English. Glossary: Blackwell Publishing. pp. 332, 349, 363, 369. ISBN 0-631-22636-2.
- ^ Harper, Douglass (November 2001). "Dark". Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved 2007-01-18.
