Because the lens in your eye you use to focus, acts like a burning glass, and burn the back of your eye, where what you see is focused at.
It's like using a magnifying glass to burn an ant on the pavement, but the sun is you, you're the ant, and the sun is using your eyeball as the magnifying lens
The sun is still the sun in this comparison. Its not like "you" is the source of light here. The back of your eye is the ant, and the lens of your eye is the magnifying glass.
That's like my analogy, except you're me, I'm an idiot, and the analogy is actually done right
But where’s the sun in this analogy?
The sun is the analogy
We are all analogies this blessed day. 🙏
Cuz there is a secret alien weapon inside of it and the gov doesn't want you to see it, so sun's glaze blinds you
LMAO I’m dead
Damn gov got lil homie, RIP you knew too much 🙏
RIP lil homie
o7
Pour one out
Jewish Space Laser, bro
Because the sheer amount of energy going directly on your retina will burn a hole through it. It'll also damage the photo receptor cells at the back of the eye.
Photic retinopathy generally goes away on its own over time, but there is no specific treatment known to be reliable for speeding recovery.
Thank god to know it gets better over time. I was a dumb, dumb kid.
(side note: Still dumb, just not a kid anymore)
The second part I knew, but the first part I did not. Rest assured, I never let this happen, my parents always made sure I knew not to look at the sun
Ever fry an ant with a magnifying glass?
Swap out the ant for your retinas, and that's pretty much the deal.
So that's what happened to Ants in my Eyes Johnson.
Yes above average
Wait. What?!?
I've spent the last 16 years avoiding direct eye contact with my son for fear of eye damage.
Have you found that milk at the grocery store yet?
Sure did! Just need to make one more stop for smokes.
On a related note, why is it that looking at the sky when there's a lot of light, if I use both eyes it hurts, but if I keep one closed I can see the sky just fine?
That's actually a bug; your brain averages light levels across both eyes when deciding how much to flinch.
Don't do it - you're basically exposing yourself to potentially damaging light levels in the eye you keep open.
One desensitized eye
I'm not sure, it doesn't matter which one I close
Pure conjecture, but maybe one overloaded eye is easier to handle than two?
There is physical damage of heating the retina with focused light, and there is chemical damage of depleting the reactions that normally occur when light is translated into neural signals in the retina.
It's too bright and your lens focuses that light on your retina. Like a magnifying glass focusing the sun on a leaf and setting it on fire.
But my eyeball has never set on fire when I looked at the sun?
Wikipedia says that the heating from the focused light is minimal because the retina is surrounded with fluid, similarly to how a balloon filled, even partially, with water won't pop over a candle flame. However, the light itself is damaging, as far UV is ionizing radiation and can rip apart the molecules making up your cells.
No Stupid Questions
No such thing. Ask away!
!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Rules (interactive)
Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.
All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.
Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.
Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.
Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.
Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.
Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.
That's it.
Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.
Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.
Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.
Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.
On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.
If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.
Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.
If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.
Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.
Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.
Let everyone have their own content.
Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.
Credits
Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!
The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!