Human Vision Can Sense a Single Photon | The Institute for Creation Research

Human Vision Can Sense a Single Photon

How well designed is the human visual system? Biophysics researchers from the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology in Austria and Rockefeller University recently demonstrated that people can see just a single photon of light. This led them to ask how evolution could have crafted a visual system sophisticated enough to overcome the overwhelming problem of discerning single photons from the sea of electromagnetic, molecular, and electrochemical "noise" inside a human head.

Research from the 1940s suggested human vision might have the ability to detect single photons, but the tests available back then couldn't send just a single photon toward an observer's eye. A new setup uses a crystal to split a high-intensity photon into two low-intensity photons. The process directs one low-intensity photon to the subject's eye and the other low-intensity photon to a camera as a crosscheck.

The team performed over 30,000 trials. They wrote in the journal Nature Communications, "To our knowledge, these experiments provide the first evidence for the direct perception of a single photon by humans."1

The designs of the man-made research camera and the human-visual system deserve comparison. The experiment's camera engineers are smart, educated people, and they specified the right materials and the right shapes and sizes for all the camera's components. They arranged them at the optimum angles and assembled them in the right order to manufacture the single-photon-detecting camera. What might they say about the assertion that chance evolutionary processes, not a person, engineered the entire human visual system?

Alipasha Vaziri is the senior author of the report and head of the Laboratory of Neurotechnology and Biophysics at Rockefeller University. He told Rockefeller news,

If you imagine this, it is remarkable: a photon, the smallest physical entity with quantum properties of which light consists, is interacting with a biological system consisting of billions of cells, all in a warm and wet environment. The response that the photon generates survives all the way to the level of our awareness despite the ubiquitous background noise. Any man-made detector would need to be cooled and isolated from noise to behave the same way.2

Indeed, his team had to cool the detector they used, an EMCCD camera, to -80C to get it within the sensitivity range of single photons. Low temperatures reduce the number of random detection events, called noise, which occur even when no photons enter the system. The team also had to optimize their camera by adjusting at least six other parameters, listed in Supplementary Table 2.

These two detectors offer a crisp analogy. If human camera construction and optimization requires sub-freezing and dry conditions to detect single photons, then only a super-human design could overcome the much more challenging noise problem that a wet and warm living environment adds to the human visual system.

References

  1. Tinsley, J. N. et al. 2016. Direct detection of a single photon by humans. Nature Communications. 7: 12172. 
  2. Fenz, K. Study suggests humans can detect even the smallest units of light. Rockefeller Newswire. Posted on newswire.rockefeller.edu July 20, 2016, accessed July 21, 2016. 

*Mr. Thomas is Science Writer at the Institute for Creation Research.

Article posted on August 8, 2016.

The Latest
DAYS OF PRAISE DEVOTIONALS
Summer 2023
...

CREATION PODCAST
I Have NO Credentials! | The Creation Podcast: Episode 50
Do you need a science degree to be a champion of creation? How do we communicate the truths of Scripture to our friends and family? The good news...

NEWS
Shark Jaws
Sharks are back in the news, and it’s in regard to their most formidable and fearsome structure—their jaws. Zoologists recently studied...

CREATION.LIVE PODCAST
Established Day 4 | Creation.Live Podcast: Episode 13
Humans have long been fascinated by the night sky. As Psalm 19:1 reminds us, "The heavens declare the glory of God"—His creative signature...

NEWS
Physical Evidence Trumps Evolution Theory
One of the hallmarks of good science is to formulate a cogent theory based on the physical evidence. For example, if the physical evidence (e.g. a fossilized...

NEWS
Solar System Symmetries
Most all school children can recite the planets in our solar system using memory devices such as: “My Very Easy Method Just Speeds Up Names”...

NEWS
Does Iron Toast Union Rescue Long Ages?
The puzzle persists after all these years. On the one hand, biochemists perform decay rate studies that show biochemicals cannot last a million years...

CREATION PODCAST
The Industrious Efficiency of Bees | The Creation Podcast: Episode...
Bees? BEES! When it comes to these incredible insects, we often think of hives and honey—and stingers. But these little creatures are incredibly...

NEWS
Blinking Fish Transitioned to Land?
The mudskipper (Boleophthalmus caeruleomaculatus) of the order Perciformes, is a fascinating fish whose evolutionary origins are quite unknown. They...

NEWS
Man: Created to Walk Upright
One of the many serious problems with “human evolution” is how, when, why, and where our alleged apelike ancestors decided to rise and walk...