What is so special about the spectrum of the visible light? Why can’t we see radio waves or ultra violet rays?

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What is so special about visible light spectrum?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

It’s sort of just based on what can be detected and what let’s life evolve in the first place.

High energy radiation like gamma isn’t so good for life as it tends to destroy cells. Low energy like radio is hard to detect since it doesn’t have enough energy to be detectable by the chemical processes our eyes use.

UV is cool, but is still energetic enough to cause problems like skin cancer. A number of animals/insects have evolved vision that hits the UV range so it’s not completely out of the question though.

Infrared might be interesting, but the problem is that infrared is emitted by anything warm. Looking at infrared cameras you can see things that are warmer and colder than their environment, but all the background is washed out. That and you are warm, so your eyeballs would be emitting their own infrared which isn’t so good. Maybe think of it like trying to see normal visible light with a tiny flashlight -inside your eyeballs.

Visible light is also available in pretty decent quantity from the sun.

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