If you are invisible, do you have a shadow?

Answer

Dear Ella

You have asked a very nice philosophical question. There is also a factual answer.

For shade you need light. Without a light source there can be no outline of your body. But who knows, you may be invisible to the human eye, but the light can still “reflect” you and create a shadow that other beings with more developed senses can still see. So it depends on how you define invisibility.

Philosophically, you can do a lot of fun thinking exercises with this. I can recommend that you, for example, read the story The Ring of Gygos or have it read aloud (by the Greek philosopher Plato, in the second book of his State) or you can work with it in class, for example by having the teacher to fantasize/philosophize about this with your classmates. Or you can draw invisible things… Here’s a little poem to close your question.

INVISIBLE
A sigh is invisible
Just like the wind
The night is invisible
When the day begins
Things are invisible
that I’ve lost
That I’ll never find again
But
With my eyes closed
I see everything
What my head makes up.
(You are the sweetest, H. and M. Hagen, 1st edition 2000, 19th edition 2006)

Another beautiful summer to you.

Greeting

Ciska