How can a window screen be see-through from one side, but barely the other?

Question

I have a window in my current living space that’s a simple, single-hung window, and on the outside is fitted with a fine mesh window screen to minimize bugs coming in. Inside, I have a perfectly clear view of the outdoors – I can see the front yard, the road, my neighbor’s house, with no significant or even noticeable obstruction from the screen. Yet, on the outside, you can barely see in through the window at all – even with sunlight streaming in and illuminating the room, you can only see basically what’s right against the window, nothing beyond that. Though I’m sure this is a fully intentional privacy feature, I’m terribly curious about how that can be, that one way the screen provides next to no obstruction, yet the other it’s almost completely obstructing the view. From what I understand about vision, we see based off light particles bouncing off the subject into our eyes, so… is the outside of the screen somehow absorbing light particles? It isn’t even especially dark, just a sort of medium grey fine metal mesh…

Thanks in advance!

In: 5

Answer 1

There is light in one side, there is no light in the other. The side with more light passes light to the other side (actually both does, but the side with more light will indeed do more). So you turn the lights at night, you can see whats inside from that window. Otherwise, at daylight, outside light will bounce, but you still can see outside because not all light got blocked, but you can´t see inside from outside because there is not enought light coming from inside to be able to see, so you see your reflection.