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Lock up children during eclipse – expert (1976)

12 points by apsec112 9y ago

wmil 9y ago
My elementary school actually did this during the 1994 annular eclipse. They literally taped all the windows shut. They wouldn't even set up a pinhole viewer.
- aaron695 9y ago
  Country/State?
  - wmil 9y ago
    North Bay, Ontario, Canada
zaroth 9y ago
I can only imagine the risks are terribly overstated. 1000 years ago we didn't have mass media hysterically screaming, "Don't look!" and the average pleb certainly did look at such an incredible sight... so where are the reports of mass blindness following the partial eclipses of old?
- flukus 9y ago
  No reports of blindness, but they may have received significant eye damage. Until the last 100-200 years when literacy become common the average pleb wasn't really aware of their eysight deterioration.
  - wahern 9y ago
    All kinds of human activity suffer significantly from poorer vision. For example, sewing and weaving, hunting and fishing. The term presbyopia isn't just derived from Greek, it was coined by the ancient Greeks themselves who also endeavored to understand the phenomenon. See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23773258 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23773258 If someone's eyes were damaged I have little doubt that they'd recognize the damage. I can imagine all sorts of reasons why this may not have been recorded, presuming such damage was common. But that they didn't realize their vision deteriorated, I highly doubt.
hedora 9y ago
This article has an impressively poor explanation of how pinhole viewers work.
adrianmonk 9y ago
There may be something to this. I was an elementary school kid during the late 70s (1979?) eclipse. We went out onto the playground to view it, and I'm pretty sure I ignored all the warnings to not look directly at the sun. (It's not like I hadn't looked directly at the sun before, though.)
jgalt212 9y ago
Unless you are in totality or near totality, I doubt a child would notice anything special is going on. Unless, of course, they notice a bunch of other people staring at the sun through glasses--and then attempt to do the same thing sans glasses. I was just in an area of 70% coverage and away from all the starers, I did not notice anything special going on. It was a bit dimmer at mid-day, but that could have been easily ascribed to cloud coverage.

12 points by apsec112 9y ago

wmil 9y ago

My elementary school actually did this during the 1994 annular eclipse. They literally taped all the windows shut. They wouldn't even set up a pinhole viewer.

aaron695 9y ago
Country/State?
- wmil 9y ago
  North Bay, Ontario, Canada

zaroth 9y ago

I can only imagine the risks are terribly overstated. 1000 years ago we didn't have mass media hysterically screaming, "Don't look!" and the average pleb certainly did look at such an incredible sight... so where are the reports of mass blindness following the partial eclipses of old?

flukus 9y ago
No reports of blindness, but they may have received significant eye damage. Until the last 100-200 years when literacy become common the average pleb wasn't really aware of their eysight deterioration.
- wahern 9y ago
  All kinds of human activity suffer significantly from poorer vision. For example, sewing and weaving, hunting and fishing. The term presbyopia isn't just derived from Greek, it was coined by the ancient Greeks themselves who also endeavored to understand the phenomenon. See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23773258 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23773258 If someone's eyes were damaged I have little doubt that they'd recognize the damage. I can imagine all sorts of reasons why this may not have been recorded, presuming such damage was common. But that they didn't realize their vision deteriorated, I highly doubt.

hedora 9y ago

This article has an impressively poor explanation of how pinhole viewers work.

adrianmonk 9y ago

There may be something to this. I was an elementary school kid during the late 70s (1979?) eclipse. We went out onto the playground to view it, and I'm pretty sure I ignored all the warnings to not look directly at the sun. (It's not like I hadn't looked directly at the sun before, though.)

jgalt212 9y ago

Unless you are in totality or near totality, I doubt a child would notice anything special is going on. Unless, of course, they notice a bunch of other people staring at the sun through glasses--and then attempt to do the same thing sans glasses. I was just in an area of 70% coverage and away from all the starers, I did not notice anything special going on. It was a bit dimmer at mid-day, but that could have been easily ascribed to cloud coverage.