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eelyesterday at 5:14 PM2 repliesview on HN

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. :)


Replies

lukanyesterday at 8:47 PM

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

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dtgriscomyesterday at 9:27 PM

Isn't infrared, by definition, wavelengths beyond what people can see?

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