Which is faster... our sight or the speed of light???

[rahulsahukar]

Not sure if this a good question or not... but which one is faster... the human sight or the speed of light? I mean when we look at sun directly... are we seeing the live sun or the 8-minute older sun??

hope it makes sense.

Thx!

 

[weeman]

We are seeing the sun as it was 8 minutes ago. It took its light 8 minutes to travel the 93 million miles to reach us. This is what astronomers mean when they say that we are looking further back in time the farther into space we look.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Since what wee see is light, they are the same.

 

[OleNewt]

heh, I think our sight is slower, MW. Light has to be converted into electrochemical impulses for our brain to interpret, and I'm not sure that that medium is equal to c. Probably about on par with the time-dilation clocks, though.

 

[MeteorWayne]

ROFL, good point. The conversion from EM radiation to electrical signals, propogation to the brain, and processing to interpret it takes far longer than light takes to get from the other side of town to you :shock: :ugeek:

 

[Couerl]

but which one is faster... the human sight or the speed of light? I mean when we look at sun directly... are we seeing the live sun or the 8-minute older sun??

Hi, well it would make sense to Euclid or Ptolemy as they both conjectured that light emanated from the eyes and cast their "fire" on the other 4 elements (earth, wind, fire, water) so that we could see them. :lol:

Look up light and historical theories for a few good laughs.

 

[dryson]

It would depend on how close you are to the object that you are looking at that is producing the light, the closer you are the less time it takes for you to see the light. I also think that our brains operate faster than the speed of light as the speed of thought is completely different than how the speed of light functions.

 

[ramparts]

But dryson, thought comes down to electrical impulses and cellular functions which can't travel faster than light.

 

[ArcCentral]

Not sure if this a good question or not... but which one is faster... the human sight or the speed of light? I mean when we look at sun directly... are we seeing the live sun or the 8-minute older sun??

hope it makes sense.

Thx!

To be perfectly anal about whether we are seeing the live sun, or an eight minute older sun, it is the live one. You have a reference frame and it is in the now, and you only get one a dem dar reference frames, thusly the sun is what it is when you see it, but not for long if you keep lookin at it.