Laws of Nature: Waves
By: Michael Woronko
Tags: Science, Philosophy, Life Lessons, Lifestyle, Energy

“As we penetrate into matter, nature does not show us any isolated “building blocks,” but rather appears as a complicated web of relations between the various parts of the whole. These relations always include the observer in an essential way. The human observer constitute the final link in the chain of observational processes, and the properties of any atomic object can be understood only in terms of the object’s interaction with the observer.”

― Fritjof Capra

Soundwaves

Sound is a sequence of pressure waves, able to propagate through various mediums like air or, to a much lesser extent, water. Unlike lightwaves, soundwaves can reverberate around objects; while this means that it’s easier for them to travel around objects and obstacles alike, it allows for the possibility of distortion.

This distortion must be accounted for on many levels, most notably for our purposes, those of a social importance. Information, by its very nature, is subject to variable kinds of distortion as it travels from receiver to receiver. We ought to apply this fundamental rule of nature to our own social interactions, individually or collectively, and appreciate the fact that such reverberations can be employed as filters, amplifiers, scramblers or conveyors of any given message.

There are various elements in nature that muffle or carry sound. Subtle elements which influence sound in subtle ways. Or obvious elements which can influence sound in more obvious ways.

For instance, a dense enough fog can carry certain types of sounds exponentially farther than they would otherwise travel, bouncing and vibrating off the suspended water molecules in the air; the closer the molecules are to each other, the easier and farther the sound can travel.

We ourselves can, if we so choose, consider our actions and our maneuverings through the world to be like sound. We can move through the various mediums which we inhabit, riding certain elements with a relative ease compared to being smothered by other elements.

In a vacuum, we can’t do much, as we have little to no molecules to vibrate. In a sea of noise, we can be drowned out. But, all the while, the soundwave carries along, propagating itself throughout the surrounding world.

Lightwaves

Like sound, light is also a series of pressure waves — electromagnetic radiation. It’s much easier said than understood that humans can only perceive a sliver of the electromagnetic spectrum, what we call our range of visible light.

Countless lifeforms in this world can pick up on various ranges of the spectrum that we can’t. For instance, how some birds perceive UV light and some reptiles perceive infrared.

Still, from that limited portion of electromagnetic radiation that we can see, it lights up our world in ways we seldom appreciate.

To see light from the sun being both entrapped and released as an iridescent scintillation of colors glistening atop snow is to realize that even a photon of light is comprised of many elements that can disperse and consolidate.

To appreciate how the various colors of light become absorbed or photosynthesized by nature, that plants and animals like possess cryptochromes — photoreceptors — that regulate light absorption and tune the circadian clocks is to understand the inherently intricate design of our biological systems.

To appreciate how light can equate to heat and how heat can, itself, illuminate; to also appreciate that heat need not signify light and that light need not radiate heat is to understand the interplay of energy. To understand that heat loss and heat transfer is the signature of entropy in our reality, signifying the perpetuity of motion and change, is to appreciate our ever spiraling existence from order to disorder.

I encourage anyone to sit atop a mountain on a windy day and notice how the sun, upon emerging momentarily from the pacing clouds, creates a sudden but subtle reaction in the atmosphere, as wind gusts emanate from nowhere and the sudden impact of light photons raining upon the surrounding area is felt everywhere.