The City With No Shadows-Hard Riddles

||Light came equally from every direction (crystal light sources)||

Explanation:

The Riddle

An explorer entered a glowing desert city where no shadows fell—
not from people, not from buildings.
It wasn’t magic.
It wasn’t night.
Why were there no shadows?

Step 1: What a Shadow Really Is

A shadow only exists when three conditions are met:

1. A light source
2. An object blocking that light
3. A dominant direction from which the light comes

Most environments have:

• A sun
• A torch
• A lamp

All of these create directional light, which produces shadows.

So to erase shadows, you don’t remove objects—
you remove directionality.

Step 2: The City’s Glow Is the Clue

The city is described as:

• Glowing
• Bright enough to illuminate everything
• Consistent across the entire space

That tells us:

• Light is not coming from one source
• It is coming from everywhere at once

Step 3: The Cause Revealed

Light came equally from every direction (crystal light sources).

Step 4: How This Eliminates Shadows

Imagine the city built with:

• Crystalline walls, streets, and towers
• Materials that emit or scatter light uniformly
• Countless tiny light sources embedded everywhere

In such an environment:

• If one side of a person is blocked from light…
• Light from the opposite side fills it in
• And from above
• And from below
• And from behind

Every potential shadow is immediately canceled by light from another angle.

The result:

Perfect, shadowless illumination.

Step 5: Why It Feels Unnatural

Humans rely on shadows for:

• Depth perception
• Movement cues
• A sense of time and direction

Without shadows:

• People look flat and unreal
• Buildings lose scale
• Motion feels wrong

The city feels alien not because it’s magical—
but because it violates a rule our brains expect.

Final Answer Explained

Why were there no shadows?

Because the city was lit evenly from all directions by crystal light sources, leaving no dominant light angle to cast shadows.