--- title: Light and shadows — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Light and shadows», a lesson of the physics course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Light comes from things that shine, like the Sun, a lamp or a fire, and it travels in straight lines, faster than anything else. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/20-light-and-shadows/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Physics](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/) / Light and shadows # Light and shadows Lesson 20 of the physics course of Mova's primary school: 16 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/physics/20-light-and-shadows/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/20-light-and-shadows/0/) — Light comes from things that shine, like the Sun, a lamp or a fire, and it travels in straight lines, faster than anything else. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/20-light-and-shadows/1/) — We see most things because some of that light bounces off them into our eyes; in a room with no light at all you see nothing, however long you wait. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/20-light-and-shadows/2/) — When something blocks the light, it leaves a dark patch behind it in its own outline: a shadow, like your hand rabbit on the bedroom wall. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/20-light-and-shadows/3/) — A low morning Sun stretches your shadow long across the playground, while the high Sun at midday shrinks it to a puddle at your feet. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/20-light-and-shadows/4/) — Light things bounce most light away and dark things soak it up and turn it into warmth, and the colour you see is the light a thing bounces back to you. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/20-light-and-shadows/5/) — Light travels in straight lines and cannot bend round you, so your body leaves a shadow where it blocks the sunlight. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/20-light-and-shadows/6/) — On a cloudy day light comes from all over the sky, so shadows are faint or missing. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/20-light-and-shadows/7/) — Shadows are long when the Sun is low in the morning and evening and short when it is high at midday, and sundials used shadows to tell the time. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/20-light-and-shadows/8/) — A shadow shows the outline of the thing in the way, and moving a hand closer to the lamp makes its shadow bigger. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/20-light-and-shadows/9/) — We see a book because light from a lamp or the Sun bounces off it into our eyes. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/20-light-and-shadows/10/) — Light goes about 300,000 kilometres every second, and sunlight takes about eight minutes to reach the Earth. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/20-light-and-shadows/11/) — Starlight takes years, even thousands of years, to reach us, so we see each star as it was when its light set off. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/20-light-and-shadows/12/) — White things reflect most light and dark things absorb it and turn it into heat, so a white T-shirt keeps you cooler in the Sun. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/20-light-and-shadows/13/) — A cat's eyes shine in headlights because a mirror-like layer at the back of the eye bounces light back out, helping the cat see in dim light. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/20-light-and-shadows/14/) — A red apple looks red because it bounces red light and soaks up the other colours; under a blue lamp it looks almost black. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/20-light-and-shadows/15/) — A reflective strip bounces car headlights straight back to the driver, so a cyclist wearing one is seen from much further away. - ← previous: [Bangs and loud sounds: firecrackers and ears](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/19-bangs-and-loud-sounds-firecrackers-and-ears/) - next →: [Mirrors, rainbows and the blue sky](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/21-mirrors-rainbows-and-the-blue-sky/) - ↑ back to [Physics](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/)