this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2025
828 points (98.8% liked)
Science Memes
14201 readers
4075 users here now
Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!
A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
Rules
- Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
- Keep it rooted (on topic).
- No spam.
- Infographics welcome, get schooled.
This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
Research Committee
Other Mander Communities
Science and Research
Biology and Life Sciences
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- !reptiles and [email protected]
Physical Sciences
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
Humanities and Social Sciences
Practical and Applied Sciences
- !exercise-and [email protected]
- [email protected]
- !self [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
Memes
Miscellaneous
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
He has very strange-looking ears as well so I don't see the issue.
Also, take that, people who were whining about artists drawing manga-style LotR fanart after the Peter Jackson movies.
Anyway, does Legolas' ability to see very far necessarily mean his pupils must be humongous? The pupils on eagles aren't exactly very large either but as a cursory internet search tells me their internal structure is very different from human eyes. Anyone able to speculate on elvish eye anatomy?
Your pupil is functionally the same as the aperture on a camera. Whenever light passes through an aperture, there is some diffraction that happens to it; the angle of the light changes. This is separate to anything the lens does. If there's too much diffraction, you won't be able to tell two different sources of light apart. The amount of diffraction depends on the wavelength of the light and the size of the aperture. Bigger apertures and shorter wavelengths diffract less. This "diffraction limit" has a formula accordingly.
So for the question, we make some basic assumptions: take the wavelength of red light as it's the longest wavelength for visible light, and assume he needs to be able to tell apart two light sources 2 metres apart at a distance of 15 miles to distinguish individual riders. We figure out the angle between two points 15 miles away and 2 metres apart and now we know the angular resolution necessary. We know that the diffraction limit of Legolas' eyes has to be at least as small as that resolution. We also know our wavelength, so we can stick those into the formula and find out the minimum aperture (ie, the minimum diameter of Legolas' pupils to make out the riders at that distance)
I'd argue that accurate color perception isn't necessary if one makes an assumption about the average age of the riders. Given that bright hair in humans is either blond or whitened by age (excepting albinos, which are rare), all of the riders having bright hair means that they're either blond or old. Assuming that there are few large groups of senior riders, Legolas could come to his conclusion based on brightness alone.
Unfortunately I don't know enough about optics to say whether this makes any difference.
Legolas can also tell that they carry spears and their leader is taller than average. Spectral information is unlikely to tell him that.