Abstruse Goose: The Sliver of Perception
By Ann Finkbeiner | January 25, 2012 | 2 Comments
That vertical axis — the electromagnetic spectrum which is science-talk for light — actually goes from something like 3 x 102 to something like 3 x 1024 (in the same units), which is from radio waves, through microwaves, to infrared, to the visible (that tiny rainbow window there), to the ultraviolet, to xrays, to gamma rays.
The horizontal axis — sound — I know less about, except that for some reason we don’t divide sound up into wavebands the way we do light. No matter. Animals can hear and see both above and below the waveband ranges that are allotted to us hapless humans.
So what’s out there, way beyond the visible and audible? Would we be surprised? would we be delighted? would we be frightened?
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February 7th, 2012 @ 1:51 pm
I love this graph. I’m reading Incognito by David Eagleman, and it resonates very much with that. For example: “In the future we may be able to plug new sorts of data streams directly into the brain, such as infrared or ultraviolet vision, or even weather data or stock market data. The brain will struggle to absorb the data at first, but eventually it will learn to speak the language. We’ll be able to add new functionality and roll out Brain 2.0. [...] this is not a theoretical notion; it already exists in various guises.”
Have you heard about the Brainport? worth a look. http://vision.wicab.com/technology/
I wrote a little about this in my epiphanies post, on January 6.
But your graph just really sums it up. Fantastic. I don’t suppose I could re-post it? With credit and a link?
February 7th, 2012 @ 1:55 pm
Go over to Abstruse Goose’s own site — and arrgh, I see I didn’t link to it. Here it is: http://abstrusegoose.com/421
Anyway, ask him for permission to post.