Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Ever see something out of the corner of your eye, just for it to disappear?

So...I learned something interesting today.

Did you know that the corners of your eyes have more rods than the middle of your eyes?

Let me back up and explain. Our eyes have cells in them called Rods and Cones, named after their shape. Cones are better for color and day vision. Rods are better for night vision because they pick up light better than cones do. One rod can actually detect a single photon, though that never makes it to our conscious mind because the brain considers a single photon to be unimportant unless it is pitch black.

The interesting thing is that EVERYTHING we see is a reflection of light...so the rods being more sensitive to light actually makes them see better than the cones. And the majority of them are in the corners of our eyes.

What does that mean? Well, apparently our vision is actually better out of the corner of our eye than it is looking at something straight on. I first heard this on the Science channel today, and then did some follow up research to confirm it (because we all know how reliable tv is...). Back in the days of Madam Curie when scientists were discovering x-rays, gamma rays, and all the different forms of radiation, a French scientist was convinced he had found a type of radiation called an N-ray. He had these little metal rods that made a spark of energy between them, like a tiny bolt of lightning, to detect the radiation. When x-rays hit the spark, they cause it to brighten considerably. But after the experiment was over and he turned off the flow of x-rays, the scientist (Blondlot I think was his name) saw out of the corner of his eye that the spark was still brightening, but it couldn't be seen straight on...only out of the corner of the eye.

Now this was later found to not be true, his experiments were faulty. BUT, in the course of the show, they said that the corner of the eye actually does have better vision. To see something as clearly as possible, you should use your peripheral vision, because it is sharper than your regular vision.

So what's my point? Well...if the corner of our eye actually has BETTER vision, then why is it when someone sees something out of the corner of their eye, they usually just assume they imagined it? It is actually a fact that our vision is better out of the corner of our eye, so it makes sense that anything that just barely doesn't give off enough light to be seen looking straight on, CAN be seen by looking at it with your peripheral vision. Could this be an explanation as to why so many people who claim to see a "ghost" see it out of the corner of their eye?  If there is something giving off a little bit of light, but not enough to be picked up by the cones that make up our normal day vision, could it be that the corners of our eyes pick it up because they are all rods, not cones?

No comments:

Post a Comment