(urth) Inhumi eyes and names

Jerry Friedman jerry_friedman at yahoo.com
Sun Sep 30 18:14:02 PDT 2012


> From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>

> On 9/28/2012 5:29 PM, Jerry Friedman wrote:
>>    Infrared vision for the inhumi makes perfect sense to me.  The sky is 
> blue because short wavelengths are scattered more than long; we get lots of blue 
> light from the sky, but little red.  Therefore infrared should be scattered even 
> less.  A being that could see only in the infrared, and maybe not the near 
> infrared, would be able to see the sun, but the sky would look black to him or 
> her.  I can't think of why such a creature wouldn't be able to see the 
> stars.
>>    Aren't the stars visible during the day on Urth, because the sun is 
> faint and reddish?  Perhaps gthis implies a symbolic, or for some, a coded link?
> 
> That too. But I had not thought (not being a physicist) of scattering, which 
> helps to obscure the stars for us. But wouldn't stars themselves tend not to 
> emit infrared visible over interstellar distances?


I don't see why.  There's be less energy from the stars we see, but I imagine it would be enough to see them.  Many stars, probably the majority, emit more strongly in the infrared than the visible, but most of them are pretty faint.

A check of the archives (I'm too lazy to check the books) says the inhumi are cold-blooded.  That would help.  There's still a constraint that they'd have to use wavelengths considerably shorter than those produced at typical temperatures on Green, where it's hot.  I was thinking about trying to figure out what would be necessary for the day sky to look black to them.  Did I mention laziness?

Jerry Friedman



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