Maybe it’s just my ADHD, but the article doesn’t seem to be clear on something: do these contacts actually allow you to see into near-infrared as it exists, or do they merely shift the light into a spectrum we can see, the way cameras do? I’m hoping for the former, but I doubt we have the tech to allow us to see new colors simply by putting on a pair of contacts.
(Also, the mental image of scientists putting tiny little contact lenses on mice is hilarious to me.)
TL;DR from Wikipedia: In photon upconversion, two or more incident photons of relatively low energy are absorbed and converted into one emitted photon with higher energy.
Basically photons are combined into a photon that is nearer in wavelength to visible light.
Aww that’s disappointing, but I’m not surprised. Otherwise we’d be using this tech to help colorblind people tell the difference between red and green.
To counter the first theory, a contact cannot change the physical biology of the photon detecting cells (rods and cones) in the back of your eye. Nothing can, short of modifying your genetics.
So you can either become part mantis shrimp, or shift the wavelengths into the spectrum your biology already can absorb and interpret.
It shifts the wavelength into the visible range, it doesn’t grant you the ability to see new “colors”. It’s more like a translation into a color you already know.
Maybe it’s just my ADHD, but the article doesn’t seem to be clear on something: do these contacts actually allow you to see into near-infrared as it exists, or do they merely shift the light into a spectrum we can see, the way cameras do? I’m hoping for the former, but I doubt we have the tech to allow us to see new colors simply by putting on a pair of contacts.
(Also, the mental image of scientists putting tiny little contact lenses on mice is hilarious to me.)
TL;DR from Wikipedia: In photon upconversion, two or more incident photons of relatively low energy are absorbed and converted into one emitted photon with higher energy.
Basically photons are combined into a photon that is nearer in wavelength to visible light.
Aww that’s disappointing, but I’m not surprised. Otherwise we’d be using this tech to help colorblind people tell the difference between red and green.
You mean cyclists?
LMAO
To counter the first theory, a contact cannot change the physical biology of the photon detecting cells (rods and cones) in the back of your eye. Nothing can, short of modifying your genetics.
So you can either become part mantis shrimp, or shift the wavelengths into the spectrum your biology already can absorb and interpret.
It shifts the wavelength into the visible range, it doesn’t grant you the ability to see new “colors”. It’s more like a translation into a color you already know.
Well that’s a lame perk tree