[Malvern] To those learned folk at QinetiQ

[Guy Inchbald]

On Tue, 3 Oct 2006 08:33:59, Andy Dixon <andy at andydixon.com> wrote:
>I have a question to help me win an
>argument/discussion.
>
>You have energy and matter, but isn't matter made from
>energy? Protons, Neutrons and Electrons?
>
>The eyes 'register' a certain type of energy - light
>energy. Could it be possible if the eyes were more
>sensitive to register other types of energy..?

'fraid I'm not at QuinetiQ, but:

Energy comes in many forms. The majority are embodied in, or carried by, 
the known fundamental particles - which include, among other things, 
light photons and ordinary matter. Gravitational energy (which happens 
to be negative - I've never figured that one out) is the one known 
exception.

Several of these energy forms affect the eye in the same gross way they 
affect other parts of the body - sufficient kinetic energy carried by a 
large mass can be quite painful, for example, and make you "see stars". 
Moderate levels of microwaves are particularly unpleasant because they 
induce cataracts, but do not otherwise affect vision.

It has been pretty thoroughly established that, of all these energies, 
only a narrow band of electromagnetic radiation - what we call "light" - 
is sensed in a way that constitutes proper vision.

Broadly speaking there are sound biochemical reasons for this.

Of course, something might have been missed.
For example, hallucinogenic drug users report seeing colours that do not 
exist in nature. Is this some form of undiscovered blindsight? Sadly, no 
- it is due to chemical disruption of the brain's visual processing 
mechanism.
So while we cannot prove that nothing has been missed, we are pretty 
confident.

-- 
Cheers,
Guy