CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

I'm writing a novel and doing research. Here are some things I need help with.

I was wondering if anyone here knows what this is called:
1. For example: a photo may be taken of you with the flash on. After the photo you may experience white hot flashes of colour and everything will take on a white aura. There will also be a high pitched whistling noise accompanying this and every other noise will be muted or very quiet. Eventually you will be left with lots of black (spots) smudges before your eyes and then your vision will quickly return to normal.

I don't have a clue how to explain it more, but I need to know what this is called. In my story, after 18 years, my protagonist escapes the darkened cave mines and escapes to the surface. On the surface the daylight would be ridiculously bright light for him and he would have trouble getting used to it. I want the 1st passage to show his first experience with what it would be like to step into the light after so many years in the darkness.
Its partly that but its also like the effect on some tv shows where a character is shot or close to death and you see it from the character's point of view where everything has a white brilliance etc. Does anyone know of any websites with complete detailed information on this?

3. Here's another question that's related to my story: how long would it take for your eyes to adjust to near complete darkness? There is a situation where my character decends into the cave (with many others) via a huge mine shaft lift. They live underground for many years. Would their eyes be adjusted to the dark for the whole time or would they stumble around like blind old men?

In my story the underground is close to complete darkness because the mineral mined there only grows in the darkest areas, also a ploy by the enemy for the people to give up hope.
There are section like the bedroom quarters (for guards) which have light (very dull) and the AnteChamber does to, but for the most part the slaves are near blind in the darkness and the guards have to wear infa-red goggles too.

5. Good research is definently helpful in knowing your subject for your story. I'm researching as much as I can to get this right or as close as I can.
There will be one instance in the story where the main character enters a smaller cave and glowing worms illuminate it (like in some New Zealand caves).

In the underground mines though, (where there is almost complete darkness), feeding involves the slaves mining for necta (a nut like food with the look of a truffle) which is highly expensive when sold on the Surface. The slaves are allowed to eat their small daily ration of necta, just enough to live and it has drug induced side-effects that provide the user with false happy thoughts (bad!). Those faithful to Vuijah (Vui = Our, Jah = God) live on bugs and other crawlies as to not be seduced with false thoughts by the necta. There is water for the slaves, but it is hardly fresh water. And the guards and torturers aren't much better off than the slaves.

I want the part of the novel set in the caves (and dark) to be as believeable as possible.



Can anyone help me? Sorry if I'm vague, but that's all I have.
God Bless!

First off this is a novel, not a scientific paper so don't worry too much about accuracy. People generally don't enjoy reading about solutions with Helmholtz Equations anyways. But certain things immediately come to mind.

Foremost is the fact that this poor soul has been trapped underneath the earth for 18 Years! First and foremost the individual will have a severe vitamin D deficiency, as sunlight is required in the production of vitamin D. And While I am not an expert long-term sunlight un-exposure, I think that sever sunburn is definitely not out of the question.

As for the lack of light, natural sunlight would add a negligible amount of light to the surroundings of a dark cave especially if the crystals grow in the dim environment you describe. Human eyes adjust rather quickly to their surroundings and within about ten seconds most of what you will be able to see is visible (all that is happening is the expansion of your pupil try it out go into the bathroom look in the mirror with the light on and not that your pupil has a small radius then turn out the lights, about ten seconds later turn the light on note the increased radius, do this again for twenty seconds to see if it gets much larger, in this manner you can tell how long it takes to adjust).

Also note that infrared is also a form of light, like radio waves ultra-violet or X-rays, they just aren't visible to the naked human eye. Therefore if sunlight can't make it down into the cave, neither will infrared. What would be far more helpful would be a "photo-multiplier". The human eye isn't a perfect optical device, but it is darn near it. If I remember correctly it only takes about 10 photons to set of a receptor, but still you and I can't see without far greater numbers. What a photomultiplier does is detects the single photons and converts them into an electrical signal that is amplified and then output in a far greater number of photons. So with a properly calibrated machine you could make the room as bright as outside, problem is it will be incredibly fuzzy because you are determining distances from only a few reflections.

Infrared goggles would help in determining the position of the slaves though because the human body radiates much like a black-body (look up black-body radiation). In other words hot things give off photons, but only enough to light them up and not the surrounding walls.

As for your first question I have never heard of a noise that follows but I know that the black (actually they flash bright colors like green and what not in my eyes) is caused by burning the image slightly into your eye. (Not recommended) For a really strong effect stare at the sun for a couple of seconds and look down you note that the suns image is burned into your eyes and covers a part of your vision. But it does eventually wear off; I almost wonder if the sound you are referring to is the sound of the high voltage in the cameras flash bulb. Do you get the ringing for instance when you have looked into the sun (Come on I know you’ve done it everyone has! )or into a light-bulb?

I don't know if this was any help but it stops me from doing any homework

Later,
Pascal

Thankyou so much Pascal, you are a great help! God bless you mate!
I hope you get all your homework done on time.

It is always a pleasure to put off homework I don't yet understand, I only wish I could add more but my understanding is limited.

Thank you,
Pascal

Okay, so this is what I have so far:

Extreme vitamin D deficency (research)
Severe sunburn?
Infared ineffective if no natural light
Our eyes adjust to the dark quickly (still possible if in deep mines like that?)
The ringing is the afterburn noise

Is that right?
So what is a "photo-multiplier?" Could you explain that more. Can it be worn? I looked the term up in the dictionary and found nothing.

Thankyou for your help!

First off I apologize for taking so long to reply, shoolwork has really been overwhelming lately. But there are several solutions to the problem I presented that could easily be integrated into your storyline,

Extreme vitamin D deficency (research)
Severe sunburn?

For instance you could have necta be a good source of vitamen D, which isn't extremely unplausible. This would elliminate two of the problems, the vitamen D deficency and the sever sunburn possibility. To understand why, consider the example of costal ethinic groups. These individuals tend to retain their dark skin tones even though they live in the northern latitudes (normally requiring more sunlight and therefore lighter skin tones). However, fish are a great source of vitamen D so in turn, there was no need for a change in there melanin (I think thats the chemical name) amounts to allow for the change in sunlight!

Infared ineffective if no natural light

You could elliminate this problem by placing infared emmision source on the goggles. This is like putting a flashlight on a helmet, it produces light that only the goggles can "see". This is actually how radar works (except it uses microwaves not infared). If you wish to reduce the light on the crystals, different materials reflect and absorb different wavelengths of light differently . Using this you could merely choose a frequency that happens to be in the frequency range that the crystal will most likely reflect.

Our eyes adjust to the dark quickly (still possible if in deep mines like that?)

Unfortunately true, although it might be more productive and worthwhile for the mine owner to spend a few extra bucks for slave goggles, it would be far more productive for the little money spent. He could stop individuals from leaving the cave by coating the exit tunnel with a material that greatly absorbed the light emmitted by the goggles, making the walls "stealth" so to speak. This would only work if it were coated down to a level where the tunnels no longer recieved natural sunlight of course.

The ringing is the afterburn noise

Still not quite sure about this one,

Is that right?
So what is a "photo-multiplier?" Could you explain that more. Can it be worn? I looked the term up in the dictionary and found nothing.

Check this out

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photomultiplier

Yes it can be worn and is one of two methods commonly used for night-vision goggles you can check it out more at the following website.

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/nightvision5.htm

Anyways class just started,
Later
Pascal

(Sorry no time for spell check)

Pascal, thankyou so much for this. You've been a great help! And given me some things to ponder.

God Bless!

I once heard somewhere that it takes 20 minutes to get a third of your night vision, 45 minutes for two thirds. But a full three hours for your eyes to fully adjust to night vision. You should confirm that source though.

Under the ground for 18 years? ...<thinks of Gollum> He would probably experience something akin to snow blindness. Yeah, and his skin would be pale, albino-like from no melanin being produced.