Inhumi eyes and names

Jerry Friedman · 01 Oct 2012, 01:14 · from 2012-September.txt.gz

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From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman)
Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2012 18:14:02 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: (urth) Inhumi eyes and names
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> 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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