Invisibility

[sobrique]

One of the tropes in a TV show is that of the invisible man. It's quite a cool one, all things considered. But one thing's always bothered me about it - in order to be invisible, light has to pass straight through you, unhindered. Glass, for example, can be almost invisible - you see glass because of the dirt on it, or the fact that it's reflective.

But the problem is, your eyes. Your eyes absorb light, in order to feed it into your brain, to turn into an image.
So if you're invisible, you must necessarily also be blind. Because otherwise, the light isn't able to pass straight through you. Even with partial transparency, you'd only be able to 'see' in proportion to the amount of light you let through.

... or am I overthinking it?

Comments

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

Well, in that scenario you'd only be invisible from one direction - and you still wouldn't be able to see in that direction.

[portilis.livejournal.com]

Said technology actually exists, there's at least a couple of companies working on the development of it for military applications that I've seen.

It's a long way from being properly usable though...


On a different note, the "you can't see if you're invisible due to bending light around you" is actually in the rules for at least one rpg I know of (one of the mage versions).