Why do things look smaller - just because they are further away?

Question

Love the answer from "LARRY M", but to expand the question further, since it is obviously true that objects stay the same size regardless of their distance, would it be fair to say that 'objects only look smaller - the greater the distance - due to the way the human brain organizes information, in order to allow the viewer to make sense of the world around them?' - Indeed if there existed a species which used sound as a primary method of observation - that their brains might not sort informtaion in this way - and who might 'see' objects at great distance at 'full' size - generating a confusing mass of image and perspective? Making their visual senses less usefull than hearing or touch etc.,?
Also while I understand the concept that less light reaches the observer - the greater the distance - why does this not result in a 'dim' image rather than a 'smaller' one?

Answer 1

Because the farther away whatever you're looking at is, the wider your visual field is and the smaller everything in it appears. It's due to the refraction of light by the lens of your eye, or focusing.

Picture light entering through thecornea of your eye and focusing on your retina, and trace it back out to the extent of the visual field at the depth of the object you're focused on, then move to something closer and then move to something more distant.

If you sketch that out on paper you'll see, the closer you are to the object, the more obtuse is the angle of refraction and what you're looking at fills your visual field, like say while you're looking at your monitor in front of you.

If you look at something distant, the converse holds, and a longer focal plane yields wider visual field imposed on th retina, thus the same area of the retina contains a larger image in which the details must be smaller.

Helps if you think about it in terms of pixels and resolution.
More pixels yields higher resolution but less area displayed
and vice versa.

So, at a big scale, you get more area but smaller detail, and at a small scale, you get more detail but smaller area.

Answer 2

Now this is indeed an excellent question...and not so easy to answer. But it is indeed a "thinker" of questions...and isn't that fun? Now, how to answer?...Things "look" smaller as when they are further away because "light", which makes all things visible as all things "reflect" a particular light-wave in nano-meters. They appear "smaller" the further they become because the light-waves which relect upon that particular object are reflecting at a greater "distance" from where you are standing. The greater the distance, the smaller the object because, from where you are standing, the LESS AMOUNT OF LIGHT is reflected on the object which is further away.

Answer 3

Someone who understands the trigonometric rules well could answer this very easily. The 'opposite' (object) is constant while the 'adjacent' (distance) is what we are varying. A difference observed is in the theta angle. If you increase the 'A' theta changes. The field of vision, as others have stated. To see it on paper helps understand it.

Answer 4

So as to to fit to our eyes naturally the size of an image of an object is inversely proportional to the distance of the object from our eyes. Thus the bigger the distance of the object, the smaller the image of the object in our eyes.

Answer 5

We have stereo vision. You know? Two eyes. This is in order to provide us with depth perception. Depth perception is the gift of being able to determine the distance an object is from ourselves. If we saw everything the same size, we would have no depth perception. Driving would be a real difficult and we would bump into things all the time. We would all have black eyes and lumps on our heads. Very unattractive.

Answer 6

Our viewing angle has decreased. To see this take a piece of paper and tape it to the wall. Find a point about a foot away and attach a string to both the top and bottom of the paper and measure the angle. Then do the same thing from 2-3 feet away. Size is directly proportional to viewing angle.

Answer 7

It's because we have round eyes and retinae instead of flat ones, angles matter and create the illusion that far away objects are smaller when the truth is that the only change is the angle between one side of the object and the other is small.

Answer 8

You have a field of vision. When things are smaller, they take up less space in your field of vision. Due to the fact that your field of vision is very wide, the farther something is, the more things can fit in your field of vision at that distance and therefore the smaller the object looks.

Answer 9

If an object is close it takes up more of your field of view. If it is far away it takes up less of your field of view. Now if you look at two objects that are the same distance away the big one takes up more of your field of view and the small object takes up less. So anything that takes up a small part of your field of view will look small, including large objects that are very far away.

Answer 10

line of sight makes things look small from a distance plus the human eye doesn't have focus like binoculars.