Let me rephrase the question – Do we call the Visible Spectrum that because that’s what we can see or is there something different about that part of electromagnetic spectrum (ES) that allow vision to occur. Alternately, If light is dual in nature, being both a wave and a particle, is that the same for other parts of the ES?
Which brings me to the question that I’m most curious about; would it be possible for a creature exist that can see, the same way we see, but using frequencies from other areas of the ES?
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> Do we call the Visible Spectrum that because that’s what we can see
Yes.
> or is there something different about that part of electromagnetic spectrum (ES) that allow vision to occur.
Electromagnetic radiation is all fundamentally the same thing, but different frequencies interact with matter in different ways, for example, any given substance will absorb some frequencies more than others. From a biological perspective, this means that (a) you might need different strucures in your eyes to see different frequency ranges, and (b) some frequency ranges are more valuable for certain purposes than others, e.g. infra red is good for seeing warm objects at night, visible is good for seeing fine detail during the day, etc.
So our eyes evolved to see visible light due to a combination of how useful it is and how easy it is. Other animals can see different frequency ranges because their eyes have evolved in slightly different ways due to different evolutionary pressures.
> Alternately, If light is dual in nature, being both a wave and a particle, is that the same for other parts of the ES?
Yes.
> would it be possible for a creature exist that can see, the same way we see, but using frequencies from other areas of the ES?
Yes. Many animals can see portions of the infra red and/or ultraviolet regions of the spectrum. I don’t think there are any organisms that can see microwaves, radio waves, X rays or gamma rays though. Again, this is due to a combination of how useful it would be and the complexity of the biological structures that would be required.
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