When I open my eyes, is the first thing I make with my eyes is the speed of light?
I mean, is what you SEE travel at the speed of light?
I hope you understand my question... T^T
2006-09-14 13:38:10 · 6 answers · asked by gogogo 3 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
then how fast is seeing?
or how fast is sight?
and is our sight faster than our insticts?
2006-09-14 13:58:58 · update #1
No. "Seeing" is most definitely slower than the speed of light.
In order to "See" something, light travels into the eye and hits the back of the eye. The image, converted into your brains bio-electrical signals, travels back on the optic nevers into your visual cortex.
Shapes, colors, content are compared against memories of what shapes, colors, and content ARE. Your brain makes a match, and tells you - "Hey - you're looking at an apple!"
This happens amazingly fast - (Try getting the fastest computer in the world to do this kind of image processing with the complexity that our brains do it and you'll be SOL) but not at the speed of light. In fact, the moment the photons have to travel through the cornea they are losing speed.
The bizarre thing is when your brain gets it WRONG, which happens sometimes. Ever look quickly around a cluttered room, and was SURE that you saw something there, only it wasn't? You look back and directly at the object you expected to be there, and it's NOT! but the first time you scanned across the room, you absolutely DID see it! Your brain expected it to be there, and supplied the image to you. WEIRD!
2006-09-14 13:46:51 · answer #1 · answered by Jerry 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The light that is being reflected towards you or that is glaring at you (say, if you are looking directly at the sun) is traveling at the speed of light, but you gotta remember that it takes time for your ocular nerves to transmit the message of "light" to your brain, which in turn transmits the message that you are seeing light back through your ocular nerves and onto your rods and cones. That is how you see light, which is still fast, but much slower than the speed of light.
2006-09-14 20:44:50 · answer #2 · answered by ♣Tascalcoán♣ 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
well, maybe. I mean, your nerves transfer the images in your eyes to the brain, right? So, definitely, the light that your eyes see as 'images' do travel at the speed of light, but the nerve impulses is another story.
2006-09-14 20:46:15 · answer #3 · answered by someone_mysterious 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The light reaches your eyes at the speed of light but there is a delay from your rods and cones in your eye to your processing section in your brain. Then there is also a delay of processing itself. But yeah everything you see the light leaving it is traveling at the speed of light.
2006-09-14 20:45:29 · answer #4 · answered by jeff.sadowski 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
your eyes don't send out anything, there is no, echo to say. the light enters your eyes from other objects. but when you turn a light on in your house, that light travels at the speed of light to your eyes. all your eyes do is collect and interpret the light from surround objects.
2006-09-14 20:47:30 · answer #5 · answered by twinspick22 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Good answers so far -- the only addition I can make is to point out that neural impulses (that is, the sending of messages through your sensory nerves) travel at about 240 mph (~400 kph).
2006-09-14 21:10:01 · answer #6 · answered by Scott F 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋