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

Re: Nope, not overthinking

[kalkyrie.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, the computer game Quake had this restriction as well. On picking up the invisibility power up, you disappeared entirely except for a pair of floating eyes (not quite as in depth as a book, but worth mentioning).