• Question: Hello Josh, I have a question for you... What would the world be like if there was no refraction? harlem7myaa

    Asked by harlem7myaa to Josh on 27 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Josh Makepeace

      Josh Makepeace answered on 27 Jun 2013:


      Hi harlem7myaa – what a fascinating question 😀 It’s not something I’ve thought about before. But now that I do, the world would be quite a different place, at least in how we experience it!

      Our eyes work on the basis of refraction, so without it, we wouldn’t be able to focus any of the light hitting our eyes to form into an image, so I guess we wouldn’t really be able to see anything. Or at best, we’d just see fuzzy light and dark patches, without being able to tell what they were. We wouldn’t be able to have telescopes to tell us about the universe, lots of other technology wouldn’t work, too!

      That would make life very different for us, we’d have to be much more in tune with our other senses in order to function properly. But I imagine some of the things we do, like sports, driving cars, doing art, would be almost impossible!

      Wow! Thanks, refraction – I have a new appreciation for it 🙂

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