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A shadow is a dark area on a surface where light from a light source is blocked by an object. In contrast, shade occupies the three-dimensional volume behind an object with light in front of it. The cross-section of a shadow is a two- silhouette, or a reverse projection of the object blocking the light.
The outlines of the shadow zones can be found by tracing the rays of light emitted by the outermost regions of the extended light source. The umbra region does not receive any direct light from any part of the light source and is the darkest. A viewer located in the umbra region cannot directly see any part of the light source.
By contrast, the penumbra is illuminated by some parts of the light source, giving it an intermediate level of light intensity. A viewer located in the penumbra region will see the light source, but it is partially blocked by the object casting the shadow.
If there is more than one light source, there will be several shadows, with the overlapping parts darker, and various combinations of brightnesses or even colors. The more diffuse the lighting is, the softer and more indistinct the shadow outlines become until they disappear. The lighting of an overcast sky produces few visible shadows.
The absence of diffusing atmospheric effects in the vacuum of outer space produces shadows that are stark and sharply delineated by high-contrast boundaries between light and dark.
For a person or object touching the surface where the shadow is projected (e.g. a person standing on the ground, or a pole in the ground) the shadows converge at the point of contact.
A shadow shows, apart from distortion, the same image as the silhouette when looking at the object from the sun-side, hence the mirror image of the silhouette seen from the other side.
A shadow cast by the Earth onto the Moon is a lunar eclipse. Conversely, a shadow cast by the Moon onto the Earth is a solar eclipse.
Such variations have long aided travellers during their travels, especially in barren regions such as the Arabian Desert.
/ref> however, this does not violate special relativity as shadows do not carry any information or momentum.
Although the edge of a shadow appears to "move" along a wall, in actuality the increase of a shadow's length is part of a new projection that propagates at the speed of light from the object of interference. Since there is no actual communication between points in a shadow (except for reflection or interference of light, at the speed of light), a shadow that projects over a surface of large distances (light years) cannot convey information between those distances with the shadow's edge.Philip Gibbs (1997) Is Faster-Than-Light Travel or Communication Possible? math.ucr.edu
During the daytime, a shadow cast by an opaque object illuminated by sunlight has a bluish tinge. This happens because of Rayleigh scattering, the same property that causes the sky to appear blue. The opaque object is able to block the light of the sun, but not the ambient light of the sky which is blue as the atmosphere molecules scatter blue light more effectively. As a result, the shadow appears bluish. Question Board – Questions about Light. Pa.uky.edu. Retrieved on 26 April 2013.
Fog shadows may look odd to viewers who are not used to seeing shadows in three dimensions. A thin fog is just dense enough to be illuminated by the light that passes through the gaps in a structure or in a tree. As a result, the path of an object's shadow through the fog becomes visible as a darkened volume. In a sense, these shadow lanes are the inverse of crepuscular rays caused by beams of light; they are caused by the shadows of solid objects.
Theatrical fog and strong beams of light are sometimes used by lighting designers and visual artists who seek to highlight three-dimensional aspects of their work.
On satellite imagery and aerial photographs, taken vertically, tall buildings can be recognized as such by their long shadows (if the photographs are not taken in the tropics around noon), while these also show more of the shape of these buildings.
Chhaya is the Hindu goddess of shadows.
In heraldry, when a charge is supposedly shown "in the shadow" (the appearance is of the charge merely being outlined in a neutral tint rather than being of one or more tinctures different from the field on which it is placed), it is technically described as "umbrated". Supposedly, only a limited number of specific charges can be so depicted.
Shadows are often linked with darkness and evil; in common folklore, like shadows who come to life, are often evil beings trying to control the people they reflect. The film Upside-Down Magic features an antagonistic shadow spirit who possesses people.
Ancient Egyptians surmised that a shadow, which they called šwt (shut), contains something of the person it represents because it is always present. Through this association, statues of people and deities were sometimes referred to as shadows.
In Islam, shadows are a sign of submission to God. The Quran emphasizes that everything in the heavens and the earth, including shadows, prostrates to the Almighty in awe and obedience: "Do they not see how everything that Allah has created casts its shadow, inclining to the right and to the left, prostrating to Allah while they are humble?" (Quran 16:48). Similarly, the Quran states, "And to Allah prostrates whoever is within the heavens and the earth, willingly or by compulsion, and their shadows as in the mornings and the afternoons" (Quran 13:15). Shadows, in this context, are a testament to the divine order and unity of creation.
In a commentary to The Egyptian Book of the Dead (BD), Egyptologist Ogden Goelet, Jr. discusses the forms of the shadow: "In many BD papyri and tombs the deceased is depicted emerging from the tomb by day in shadow form, a thin, black, featureless silhouette of a person. The person in this form is, as we would put it, a mere shadow of his former existence, yet nonetheless still existing. Another form the shadow assumes in the BD, especially in connection with gods, is an ostrich-feather sun-shade, an object which would create a shadow." (1994). 9780811807678, Chronicle Books. ISBN 9780811807678
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