Light Gambols Through History

Light fills the entire universe. There is light at the most distant points in space, in the deep silence of night, in the faces and landscapes of our world. Yet its presence is only indirectly perceptible. We cannot see light itself. Via light we can see objects, their colours or how they move, as our brain synthesizes them. It is as if nature wished to protect us: if light itself were perceptible, the way it arrives every moment and from all directions, it would overload our brain functions. The suspicion that something comes between us and the surrounding world arises from light's often paradoxical behaviour, like the tricks played by sunlight in the atmosphere, or an oar that appears to bend in seawater.