Little white lies and the big shift.

The idea of a black body originally was introduced by Gustav Kirchhoff in 1860 as follows:

"...the supposition that bodies can be imagined which, for infinitely small thicknesses, completely absorb all incident rays, and neither reflect nor transmit any. I shall call such bodies perfectly black, or, more briefly, black bodies."

An approximate realization of a black surface is a hole in the wall of a large enclosure (see below). Any light entering the hole is reflected indefinitely or absorbed inside and is unlikely to re-emerge, making the hole a nearly perfect absorber. The radiation confined in such an enclosure may or may not be in thermal equilibrium, depending upon the nature of the walls and the other contents of the enclosure.

so I stand deep within this cavern, gazing out across the lagoon that reflects no stars. Inferno smoulders beneath the waters, soon it will burst into flames, when it does, nothing on earth will be able to stop it.