The Mystery of Light

[John]

In present-day theories, several effects require more explanation to expand our understanding. Perhaps the most significant is the behaviour of light at distance.

We cannot see anything unless it radiates or reflects ‘visible’ light and that light reaches our eyes. So, light is not visible at some [unknown?] distance because it, like everything else we see, can be 'seen' only as an image in the brain! This surely means that, however distant the object, its light has reached our eyes. Images are processed in the brain and present local objects as being at defined distances, with amazing accuracy. We can verify this by making simple measurements. In the case of Solar System bodies, the same is true but we cannot make a visual assessment of the distances involved even though their varying distances are known.

Human vision cannot repeat this level of accuracy [perspective] when we gaze from high points at wonderful vistas and landscapes. We can though make ‘educated guesses’ that are actually quite good. Even starlight, therefore, is not millions of miles away, it is right here! This light is processed and reconstructed in our brains as objects at some considerable distance. Perspective is virtually at zero, not existent when we look at stars.

So, almost all of them are showing light that was emitted untold millions of years ago. In every case, the actual stars will by now occupy a space possibly millions of miles distant from where the light we see now originated.
So, I see light that is mostly pretty ancient. I wonder how far away from me is the light I see? It seems likely that that the starry light we see cannot itself be billions of miles away. Is it the case that we can see light only at some finite distance, irrespective of its power? If so, all the light emitted by stars and galaxies, regardless of their true distance, or intensity, will be at much the same limited visual distance. Is this 'distance' the overall limit of human sight?

Is this true in our use of telescopes? This device magnifies objects and makes them visible, but their faintness does not prove that the light they have detected is any further away or any nearer than any other. The source may be of lower intensity. It is, surely must be, at my posited limit of sight, intensified to detectable levels.

Or is it?

I will make an analogy. Imagine a 100-yard long football pitch. The blue goalkeeper can see unaided only as far as the halfway line. All the other players are illuminated at differing voltages. He can be sure of the distances of any player in his half by simple triangulation but can see others in the other half only as and when their emitted light reaches the halfway line, the visual limit. The ‘distant’ players light is only detectable at the halfway mark [50 yards] or nearer but there is no certainty of their actual place on or distance further away from the halfway line.

The light from the other [red] goalkeeper is too faint at the halfway mark to be detected. However, using a telescope, the blue goalie magnifies the very faint light emitted by the red goalie that has reached the halfway mark and that of any other players in the red half.

Alternatively, if I stretched a string to the point in space that a star seems to occupy, would that distance be the same limited distance for all visible stars?

What I am suggesting is that any human visual limit will apply no matter what the level of magnitude or the power of the telescope. No Matter how vastly more capable of detecting faint light any instrument may be, the light detected will be [in human eyes] at the posited visual limit. Seeing further seems impossible. E.g. If a source is perhaps 1 billion miles distant it is emitting a continuous beam of light after the fashion of a 1 billion miles long stairway escalator. We can have no idea where we are on that path unless we can age light.

This 'ageing' is a highly controversial subject. The light presently reaching us must act as an obstructing blanket preventing our seeing 'younger' light hidden behind the visible 'oldest' light. In interpreting the age of light the point in space at which light is visible must significantly affect our interpretation of it. This is why I want to know how distant this blanket/limit may be.
I also wonder about Mass. No-one seems very clear about this. It strikes me as odd that some particles are said to have Mass, but not all. It seems to me that the Universe consists of varieties of Mass which take the form of atoms, molecules and energy.

Matter is an admix which is capable of every possible constitution, with the proviso that nothing can exist without some trace of energy, atoms and probably other as yet undiscovered particles.

For any aspect of Matter to have existence, it must conform absolutely to the law/s of Nature. Any object lacking all trace of any particular constituent of Matter would, therefore, be ‘in breach’ and cannot form. To work so smoothly the unity of natural law can brook no deviation.

Every facet of that law can exist only in complete accord with every other facet. Such behaviour, being automatic, must mean that every individual unit of material must engage with every nuance of Matter. Just because our present ‘machinery’ may not detect some nuance in photons does not change the law of Nature!

It is on the basis that photons move at the speed of light that it is claimed they have no mass. Were this to be true our accurate understanding of the Universe would presently rate as non-existent. The Universe, being controlled by totally automatic procedures, each totally dependent on the others, its actions must always include varying degrees of every nuance of natural law - exceptions would require an independent controlling mind and more complex laws – neither seem to exist.