Super Vision revisited

September 15th, 2005

Filed under: Comics, Medicine

Superman’s vision is incredible. Not only can he see an object that is hundreds — or even thousands - of miles away, but he can also see microscopic organisms such as bacteria and viruses with his super vision. Today is a second look at Superman’s vision, focusing on his telescopic and microscopic abilities.

Anatomy of the EyeThe retina is the layer of photoreceptor cells that make up the very back of the eye. In many ways, the retina works like a digital camera*. The photoreceptor cells are like individual pixels, and the brain puts all these pixels together to make a single image.

The difficulty with looking at objects a great distance away is that these objects appear so small they don’t take up much retinal “real estate” (only a few pixels) and we can’t get a good image of them.

On the other hand, with microscopic vision, Superman’s looking at objects that are smaller than the photoreceptor cells themselves — smaller than the pixels — so there’s no way he should be able to get an accurate or clear image.

As I see it, there are 3 ways around this:

  1. Superman’s photoreceptor cells may be smaller than usual. This would allow him a finer resolution, especially with regards to distant objects and tiny objects.
  2. The cornea and lens of his eye may be extremely adjustable, functioning as a zoom lens or a macro lens. He may even have more than one lens (much like microscopes and telescopes do), but then actual physics and optics play more of a role and make that unlikely.
  3. We could just say he’s Kryptonian and leave it at that.
Rods and Cones*The digital camera analogy is an oversimplification, but it makes it easier to understand how the eye works. However, unlike digital cameras in which each pixel is identical, there are two distinct types of photoreceptor cells in the retina (rods and cones) and they both serve different functions. Rods are more numerous (120 million) and are good for low light situations and for looking at moving images. There are fewer cones (about 8 million), but they are important because they provide color vision and are better at fine details. There are three types of cones (red, green and blue) and they only respond to that particular color of light. The brain puts all these red, green, blue and black/white “pixels” together and that’s what allows us to see.

5 Responses to “ Super Vision revisited ”

  1. David Oakes
    September 16th, 2005 at 12:55 am

    Number one is tempting and all, but I am going to have to go with Two, Monty.

    Considering the sheer diversity of effects that come out of his eyeballs, I think not only are his lenses more adjustable, I am sure he has multiple lenses that can be used in sequence to produce the desired effect. (Kinda like the optometrist - “Which as more Heat Vision, number three or number four? Good.”)

    And he has a vestigal nictating membrane that can close off his eye completely in case he is ever subjected to eye damaging levels of radiation. Only he has completely forgotten about it since it never came up. Yet.

  2. Seth Finkelstein
    September 16th, 2005 at 8:22 am

    I’d go for saying that the labels for the powers are just simplifications for much more complex mechanisms.

    “I have telescopic vision” is much easier to say than “I have the ability to detect fine variations over large ranges of the electromagnet spectrum, which I can process similar to sight at long distances” (and doesn’t mean “My eyes have telescope lenses inside of them”).

    I’d assume that the heat vision doesn’t actually come out of his eyeballs. It’s energy-projection that uses a part of the brain similar to vision. But it’s not like he has tiny lasers behind his pupils (it just looks that way).

  3. John Nowak
    September 16th, 2005 at 8:59 am

    I’ve always wondered where this “energy emitting eyes” came from. Superman to Cyclops, and even the Terminators have LEDs behind their eyes for some reason… Maybe it’s a cat thing.

  4. Carl Fink
    September 17th, 2005 at 8:54 am

    John, actually the idea that the eye projects rays of some kind is ancient. Most pre-science peoples had a belief that we see by our eyes sending something out.

    Also, think of the Evil Eye. People are being executed as witches right now in some countries because their neighbors think they have the Evil Eye.

  5. John Nowak
    September 18th, 2005 at 1:37 am

    Yeah, that’s true. It might be fun to count how many non-humans with glowing eyes you see depicted in a day .

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