eli5 why distance objects appear smaller, and why not only blurrier while size is the same for the naked eye.
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So you’re looking at a big car, let’s say a pickup truck. When standing right in front of it (touching it with your nose), can you see all of it at once? Probably not, because it fills your entire field of vision. That means, the light from the far left side of the truck is coming into your eye at an extreme angle, which is radically different than the angle from which the light from the far right side of the truck is entering your eye. Since your eyes have a limited “field of vision”, you are likely not able to actually view both sides at the same time – at point blank range, that is.
Now you step back… about a mile or a couple kilometers or whatever long range unit you’re using. Now you look at that same truck again. Can you now see both sides? What’s the difference in the angles of the light from the two sides? Basically no difference, compared to your entire field of vision. Wouldn’t it be really weird if you’d see a ginormous blurry truck blocking your view from miles away?
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