MK ATLAS· Science Atlas

How Much Do You Know About Light?

Light is the thing we use every waking second and have never once looked into. There are no formulas in this series. One surprise per piece, starting with why an apple is red and ending at the first light of the universe. Written for people who did not study science.

Walk this route on the map →

Leg 1 · Why the Apple Is Red — We Have Never Seen an Object

  1. 11021Ibn al-Haytham · Optics

Leg 2 · Why Does a Mirror Flip Left and Right? It Never Did

  1. 21690Huygens

Leg 3 · Why the Sky Is Blue and the Sunset Red

  1. 31865Maxwell

Leg 4 · The Sun You See Is Eight Minutes Old

  1. 41676Ole Romer / The speed of light
  2. 51838Friedrich Bessel · Stellar parallax

Leg 5 · Why Is the Night Sky Dark?

  1. 61931Georges Lemaître

Leg 6 · The Eye Is a Very Narrow Window

  1. 71781William & Caroline Herschel
  2. 81895Röntgen · X-rays

Leg 7 · Particle or Wave — The Answer Is Both

  1. 91801Thomas Young · The double slit
  2. 101905Einstein · The photoelectric effect
  3. 111924Louis de Broglie · Matter waves

Leg 8 · The First Light of the Universe Is in This Room

  1. 121965Penzias & Wilson · CMB

Leg 9 · Light Falls Too — What Bends Is the Stage

  1. 131915Einstein · General relativity

Leg 10 · Light Grows Old — What Recedes Turns Red

  1. 141929Edwin Hubble

Leg 11 · Where Light Cannot Leave

  1. 152019Event Horizon Telescope
  2. 161974Stephen Hawking · Hawking radiation

Leg 12 · Every Beam Carries the Star's Name Tag

  1. 171814Joseph von Fraunhofer · Spectral lines
  2. 181995Mayor & Queloz · First exoplanet

Updated 2026-09-12