It comes to a world created, in the third verse of the scriptures.
To ignite it was needed: “And God said, Let there be light.” (Three syllables in Hebrew, yehi ‘or.)
From then on letters have produced light. Before or without them the world is left in the dark.
Of its speed philosophers debated: Empedocles, Aristotle.
Then men of science: Galileo, Einstein, and Goethe among them, who died with its name on his lips. (Mehr Licht, more light.)
From a firefly to lightning, from a candle to the moon, its name does not change.
Our species invented an artificial variety, named after the Greek “elektron,” a term that refers to resin of amber.