Re: Is it possible to create a real 'black light'?

Mike,

You raise an interesting question that needs to be answered at a bit of a technical level. First of all, there is no way to emit darkness; darkness results from the absorption of light. So if you're trying to think of a substance that radiates "dark," this cannot be done. Secondly, you may want to think of light as energy and darkness as an absence of energy. Therefore, to make a dark bulb, one would have to devise a way for a bulb to remove all the light energy in a room when the switch was turned on.

Can this be done? Well, because light can be absorbed, it would be theoretically possible to absorb all the light in a confined space, but it wouldn't quite work the way a light bulb does. For instance, I can imagine an explosion of dirt causing such an effect. Imagine that when the dark bulb was switched on, the bulb would eject tons of dirt particles into the confined space. If there were enough dirt particles to absorb the light energy in the confined space, then it would create the darkness you described in your question. Just keep in mind that in addition to filling the confined space with a particulate substance, this would also differ from a light bulb in that it would only have a one-time use.

Hope this answers your question,
Amber