> > Well, as long as we're talking about Wells, I might as well ask. H.G. Wells wrote The Invisible Man, and several sequels in book and movie form were derived from it, including the 1933 movie of the same name as well as the latest attempt with Kevin Bacon. I just wanted to know: in all this time, has ANYONE ever come up with a reasonable SF plot twist to explain why the Invisible Man wouldn't be *blind*?
> >
> > After all, he's got invisible corneas which won't refract light, and invisible retinas which wouldn't be impinged by the unfocused light. Not to mention an invisible optic chiasma which can't transduce the signals.... You get the picture.
> >
> > Even those strange deep sea creatures which have the ability to see, and yet their bodies are mostly "transparent" in water, are particularly notable for their little black and silver eyes floating around. Weird.
> >
> > Wolf "transparency, not invisibility of" spirit
>
> It's bothered me too. Personally, I think the idea of a suddenly blind, invisible man stumbling about is kind of funny. It might not make that great of a story, though. Like Speedball said (or as I think he said) an invisible man who is able to see is more of a plot device than anything else. It allows the writer to explore the effects of invisibility on a person without complicating it with those of blindness, as well.
>
> Another question. Wouldn't transparent flesh still cause the light passing through/around the person to be distorted in some way? Light passing through transparent substances of differing densities (from air to water or glass) is bent. Is that why we can usually see those other transparent substances? If it is, I would expect a transparent person would still be somewhat visible. Of course, I'm terrible at physics, so I could be way off.

A invisible man wouldn't because an invisible man is a fictionous idea, with its own fictionous rules, normal physics don't enter into it.

Invisible Man stories are not what is called Hard Science Fiction, i.e., the fictionous science is not based off of real science.

There are some standared rules for invisible man stories, but they vary from version to version. But ussualy the following apply.

His cloths don't turn invisible (meaning he has to run around in the buff)

Any food in his stomach is visible (meaning he has to run around hungry)

Rain, mud, smoke, confettie, paint, and anything else you can dump on him will make him somewhat visible

Also, being invisible for extened periods of time makes a person insane.

Now there are other versions, sometimes the invisbility is permanity, sometimes temporary. Sometimes a person has special clothes that will become invisible, or maybe the clothes he had on when he gained the power can change with him.

Sci-Fi dosen't need to follow true science, the story just needs to follow any scientific rules it sets up, things need an explination that at least sounds scientific.

Speed'andthatwaswhatIsaid.VerygoodBK'ball