Could a person see with glowing eyes?
Eyes that constantly emanates light, either just the iris and pupil (resembling a tapetum lucidum reflection, but visible from any angle) or the whole eyeball.
Could a person still see or would they get blind? Or would they evolve and get more resistant photoreceptors? Or they wouldn't see anything because of the eyes' light?
This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/44269. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
1 answer
One way to give a glow without causing vision problems would be if that glow is monochromatic (just one frequency), and at the same time that person happens to be blind for exactly that frequency, without affecting vision of any other frequency. That way his seeing would only be minimally affected because most things we see have a very wide spectrum (Lasers being an obvious exception), and even if they don't, it's unlikely they would have exactly that frequency. And the glow itself would not affect the seeing because, well, that person doesn't see it.
An interesting side effect would be that the person would be completely unaware of the own glowing, unless someone told the person about it, or it is revealed e.g. in a video (the video camera would, of course, not be blind to that frequency, and the replay would then be in frequencies that person can see). Another possibility to detect the own glow is through fluorescence: Since usually the wavelength emitted by the fluorescent substance is larger, it would be visible to the person, who would then observe fluorescent substances to glow on approach.
0 comment threads
0 comment threads