Another Perspective on Shadows

Baby Girl the Second and I frequently snuggle on the couch for a few minutes just after she wakes up. This morning, her attention was caught by a freestanding stereo speaker directly in front of us and its shadow angled off to the left on the wall behind. "Mom, why doesn't the shadow look the same way?" About five minutes after I showed her that if we moved four feet to the right, in line with the sunlight coming in through the patio door, the shadow matched up with the speaker, it dawned on me. Yeah. The position of the light source in relation to the object determines which way the shadow falls. And how we see it, how distorted it is, depends upon where we are standing in relation to the light source.