Sunlight Is Way Older Than You Think. Here’s Why…

PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to: http://to.pbs.org/DonateOKAY ↓ More info and sources below ↓ Thank you for The Great Courses Plus for supporting PBS. To learn more click http://ow.ly/3fCw30qmlF1 We’re on PATREON now! Join the community ►► https://www.patreon.com/itsokaytobesmart SUBSCRIBE so you don’t miss a video! ►► http://bit.ly/iotbs_sub If the sun instantly switched off like a light bulb–which can’t happen, by the way–then we wouldn’t know for almost 8 and a half minutes. Light travels at the fastest speed there is, but it still takes almost 500 seconds to get to Earth. That’s how long it would take before we knew the sun went dark. But the most amazing thing about the sunlight we see is it’s actually really old. SUPER old. AMAZINGLY OLD! Tens of thousands of years old. How is that possible? Because of the physics and mathematics of random walks. References: https://sites.google.com/view/how-old-is-sunlight-references/home Special thanks to our Brain Trust Patrons: AlecZero Bob Rosset Brent M. Diego Lombeida George Gladding Ron Kakar vincbis ----------- Join us on Patreon! https://patreon.com/itsokaytobesmart Twitter http://www.twitter.com/DrJoeHanson http://www.twitter.com/okaytobesmart Instagram http://www.instagram.com/DrJoeHanson http://www.instagram.com/okaytobesmart Merch https://store.dftba.com/collections/its-okay-to-be-smart Facebook https://www.facebook.com/itsokaytobesmartpbs/