In honor of solstice: Shining a little light on light
- Kate Troll
- Dec 22, 2025
- 3 min read
By Kate Troll
Normally on solstice I would be packing last year’s Christmas tree into the back of the truck for a bonfire at Sandy Beach. But with the minus temperatures and gusty winds, I am inside thinking about the significance of crossing over toward more light in our daily lives.
As we all know, light plays a powerful role in many faiths and spiritual beliefs. And of course, light represents hope to many of us. One of my favorite parts in having a solstice bonfire is when we go around the circle of huddled friends and say out loud what is our personal hope for 2026.
Did you know that as significant as light is for us in our culture, in our lives, in our spirituality, it’s even more significant in the world of physics. We know from classical physics that light travels at a constant speed of 186,000 miles per second. Nothing else can reach this phenomenal speed — not astronauts, not any material object – can ever reach this speed no matter how hard the effort.
Physicists also learned through experimentation that whether traveling toward the light or away from it, the relative speed of light was always the same. It was the anomaly of light’s constant that led to Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Both relativity and quantum physics, the two great paradigm shifts in modern physics, started from quirks in the behavior of light.
In quantum physics the shift-inducing quirk came when scientists discovered that a photon of light at the quantum level (i.e. subatomic) can act as a wave or particle. Add in the mathematical ability of scientists to chart out probability waves for electrons and photons, and one has a science that uses quantum physics in producing things like lasers, light-emitting diodes, transistors, medical imaging and electron microscopes. Our cell phone would not exist without the science of quantum physics. And all this is due to the wave/particle duality quirk of light
Revealed by classical physics, there are two other properties of light, that are equally weird yet awe-inspiring to grasp. I learned from reading a book entitled “From Science to God” (written by Cambridge physicist Dr. Russell) that Einstein’s equations of motion predicted that moving clocks would run slower than clocks that are at rest. Dr. Russell says, “Very sensitive atomic clocks have been flown around the world, and they have been found to slow down by exactly the predicted amount. The change is very small — a factor of about one-trillionth – but it is there.” In other words, as one approaches the speed of light, time itself runs slower.
Brian Greene, a physicist and mathematics professor at Columbia University, explains light’s effect on time this way:
Light does not get old; a photon that emerged from the Big Bang is the same age today as it was then. There is no passage of time at light speed.
This finding means that whatever light is, it seems to exist in a realm where there is no before or after. There is only now.
The other puzzling property to bring to your attention is light’s effect on space. As Dr. Russell explains, “As an observer approaches the speed of light, measurements of length get shorter in exactly the same proportions as time slows.”
The bottom line is that light occupies a very special place in our hearts, in our hopes as well as in the cosmos. Light is in some way more fundamental than time, space or matter. And a photon of light, as both particle and wave, holds a special place in quantum physics.
Late in life, Albert Einstein once said, “For the rest of my life I want to reflect on what light is.” And what is solstice, if not a good time to reflect on light.
• Kate Troll, a longtime Alaskan, has more than 25 years of experience in coastal management, fisheries and energy policy and is a former executive director for United Fishermen of Alaska and the Alaska Conservation Voters. She’s been elected to local office twice, written two books and resides in Juneau.
