Comment by eel

8 hours ago

This reminds me of a chat room interaction I had maybe 25 years ago. The other person was adamant that humans can't see the infrared from TV remotes, and I was adamant that I could. It was pretty a widespread belief (even in school science books) at that time that humans couldn't see infrared. Since then more science was done to prove that, in fact, some humans can see some infrared under some conditions.

I share that mainly to state that humans are amazing and have a wide and inconsistent range of capabilities (and sometimes even mutating into new capabilities!) Personally, I will always hesitate to say "nobody" and I lean towards "no typical human" instead. :)

4 comments

eel

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lukan  4 hours ago

I suppose this also depends on the types of remote controls? There are some where I can see red and some where I cannot.

  • MisterTea  4 hours ago

    The faint red glow is actual red light as many IR LED's (esp the ones used in cameras for night illumination) are close to the visible spectrum and have some visible light emission.

    • formerly_proven  3 hours ago

      850nm is easily visible, but most remotes are 940nm, which is also visible as a faint purple glow but the source needs to be really bright.