The Eye

John K Clark (johnkc@well.com)
Sat, 24 Jan 1998 22:24:14 -0800 (PST)


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On Sun, 25 Jan 1998 Damien Broderick <damien@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au> Wrote:

>It seems we were all understating the case. According to Richard
>Dawkins, in MOUNT IMPROBABLE, `the human retina has about 166
>million photocells' (p. 160).


It would seem to me to be a rather large jump from "the human retina has
about 166 million photocells" to the human retina can produce 166 million
pixels, much less deliver them to the visual centers of the brain where they
are all processed. The human eye can not detect individual photons, although
some species of frogs can.

By the way, somebody suggested that I look at the Mandelbrot set without
moving my eyes, I did and it's very beautiful, but I still can't believe I'm
seeing 16 million parts, or 166 million, that's why I think Fractint is a
wonderful program, it lets you zoom. If I could take in 16 million things
without moving my eyeball a bit then I wouldn't want to zoom so much and get
mad about how long it takes my computer to do it .

John K Clark johnkc@well.com

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