Perfect vision underwater with swimming goggles?!
Question:
Perfect vision underwater with swimming goggles?
I'm 19 and have been wearing glasses since I was 5. I'm am EXTREMELY nearsighted, and can't even see my own hand clearly when it's 3 inches in front of my face. Any closer, it gets clearer but I have to go cross-eyed.
Anyways, my question is regarding a strange incident that happened to me a few years ago while I was in a swimming pool.
I don't swim much, but when I do, I still wear my glasses. I had some swimming goggles - nothing too fancy, just some regular goggles you can find at any sports store - and I decided to put them on without my glasses. I was above water, and I couldn't see for crap, but once I got underwater I could see PERFECTLY!
I was freaked out. I mean I have had to wear glasses that resemble the base of a glass bottle, and yet when I put on simple swimming goggles and go underwater in a pool, I see perfect 20/20.
So, what is happening? Is it the water? The glasses?
Thx,
-X-
Answers:
Ok this question is boggling my mind lol!!! Its weird I was thinking about it and I can see pretty much see almost perfect underwater as well with goggles except I don't really need any correction. The goggles surround your eyes with air and thats the index of refraction that we are used to. I do know we made a pair of prescription goggles once for a lady and the prescription we put in the goggles was a bit different then her usual prescription. I think because the index of refraction is different of water and we are looking through it. I looked it up and they had a pretty good explanation of it..... better than I can explain lol
"In order for you to see things clearly, your eyes must focus light onto your retina. The human eye is wonderfully adapted for this purpose--but it depends on your looking through air. Under water, the shape and index of the lenses in your eyes stays the same, but the index of the stuff outside your eyes (the water) is now greater. As a result, light isn't refracted as much going into your eyes, and it focuses in a different place, so your vision is blurred. Fish, of course, have eyes adapted to this, so they can still focus underwater. A fish out of water, in addition to its other problems, would have blurred vision."
There is more I just didn't want to post it all.... check out the link