What cameras see that our eyes dont Bill Shribman
Translator: Andrea McDonough
Reviewer: Bedirhan Cinar
The human eye is one of the most powerful machines
on the planet.
It’s like a 500 megapixel camera
that can run in bright light,
in near darkness,
and even under water, though not real well.
It communicates to our brains
so much about the world.
Our eyes are how we find partners,
how we understand the people around us,
how we read,
and how we watch game shows on TV
where people get knocked into cold water
by padded wrecking balls.
Yup, the human eye is pretty neat,
and we’re lucky enough to have two of them.
But, there are things that,
despite looking really hard,
we still can’t quite see.
For example, you can watch a horse galloping,
but your eyes can’t keep up with its fast-moving hooves
enough to figure out whether all four feet
are ever off the ground simultaneously.
For these types of questions, we need cameras.
About 150 years ago,
the photographer Eadweard Muybridge used one
to solve the galloping horse mystery.
Using careful photography,
Muybridge proved that at certain points as it gallops,
a horse really is flying.
“Look, ma! No hooves!”
Since then, photography has found its way
into all aspects of math and science.
It enhances our understanding of a world
we thought we could already see,
but it’s one which we really need help
to see a little better.
It’s not always a matter of the world
moving by too quickly for our eyes to process.
Sometimes cameras can help us see matter or movements
that are too small for the naked eye.
Botanists use multiple photographs
to show the life cycle of plants
and how flowers turn over the course of a few hours
to follow the sun in what is called phototropism,
growing towards the light.
Mathematicians have used photos
to look at where in the twists and turns of a whip
the crack sound comes
when the whip is breaking the sound barrier.
Meteorologists and environmental scientists
show the growth of major hurricanes
and the recession over the years
of many of the world’s glaciers.
Slow-motion film or high-speed photography
have shown us the beating of a hummingbird’s wings
and the course of a bullet through its target.
In one project, cadavers,
that’s dead bodies,
were frozen and sliced into thousands of wafer-thin discs.
The discs were photographed
to produced animated movies
that allow a viewer to travel up and down the skeleton,
and into the flesh,
and through the bones,
and the veins,
and,
perhaps I should have suggested
you don’t watch this during dinner,
my bad.
In classrooms today, the camera,
now present in just about every phone and computer,
allows the youngest scientists
to observe the world around them,
to document it,
and to share their findings online.
Whether it’s the change of seasons
or the growth of the germinating seed,
cameras are allowing us to see a beautiful world
through new eyes.