IR Reflection

This video was created by placing a piece of Infrared Gelatin in front of the camera lens. Notice that even when facing the sun there is no glare reflecting off the road. Black asphalt absorbs infrared light. If there is glare reflecting from the road then it is most probably Ultra Violet light. Don't try this, you will go blind!! About 10 years ago I built Infrared goggles from two Tiffen 87 filters. It was an experiment to see if, when deprived of visible light, the red receptors in my eyes would be able to see lightwaves lower than 780nm. At first all I saw was black, then infrared light would fade in. After a couple of months my eyes could see the infrared light instantly. It was like living on another planet. I would wear the goggles for up to an hour. Then something unexpected happened, after wearing them for long periods of time the dark red hue of the infrared would turn orange. Then I started to see green. The green receptors in my eye, in the absence of visible light, started to pick up the low wavelength light and translate it as green light. I didn't want to mess up the color calibration of my eyes so I stopped wearing them after that. Don't ever try that experiment, people who put my goggles on complained their eyes burned afterwards for some time. You will go blind. Another pair I built were UV goggles. All light waves lower than 400nm were blocked. They were not practical to wear. I could not focus on anything further than 5 ft away. With the Infrared goggles everything was clearly in focus. Instead of large round eyepieces to allow in as much light as possible like the Infrared goggles, the UV goggle eyepieces were thin slits. Anything larger and the inside of the goggles reflected glare onto my eye and all I saw was white. It wasn't a total waste of time. I came to the conclusion that the human eye uses high wave and low wave light comparisons to calculate distance, for hunting in caveman times. The rainbow of color we see is simply a side effect.