Wednesday, October 3, 2012

What do you mean there's colors I can't see!!!

Ran across this article and I found it quite interesting, especially as it has potential impacts for things like eye wear for combination wavelength lasers.  Laser eye wear for the visible portion of the spectrum relies at least somewhat on the the human eye's aversion response (blink reflex) to provide some protection, or to at least limit the duration of the exposure.  It's not that uncommon to find applications that use red and green lasers simultaneously; does this mean that the aversion response is cancelled by the eye itself not being able to process the combination of wavelengths?  Looks like I've got some reading to do...


http://www.lifeslittlemysteries.com/2069-forbidden-colors-red-green.html


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1 comment:

  1. Kim DudeOctober 3, 2012 at 7:21 PM

    Found the paper and it was surprisingly short for a journal paper. Turns out that the news article was (not surprisingly) a little vague. The mixed wavelengths don't actually end up cancelling each other out in the retina, it's more like one ends up drowning the other out so that you cant see the other one. Blink reflex intact, all is right with the world...for now.

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