Human Eyes Could Detect Photon, The Smallest Physical Entity That Has Lights

Researchers discovered in a new experiment that the human eyes are capable of detecting the smallest units of light, which are known as photons in the super-dark conditions.

The study was published in the Nature Communications. It was led by Alipasha Vaziri from Rockefeller University and other colleagues, according to Science Alert.

The study suggests that human eyes can sense individual articles. Vaziri described it as remarkable and explained that photon is the smallest physical entity with quantum properties of which light consists. This interacts with a biological system consisting of billions of cells, all in a warm and wet environment.

A photon is defined as an elementary particle and the quantum of all forms of electromagnetic radiation that includes light. It has a zero mass. It is also a force carrier for electromagnetic force and can be well-explained by quantum mechanics, which exhibit properties of both waves and particles.

Albert Einstein developed the modern concept of the photon in the early 20th century, which explains the experimental observations that did not fit the classical wave model of light. Photon model's benefit accounted for the frequency dependence of light's energy, electromagnetic radiation to be in thermal equilibrium and explains the ability of matter.

In the study with over 30,000 tests, the participants were able to accurately detect the photon 51.6 percent of the time. The researchers considered this as a higher accuracy rate than chance.

The discovery and the experiment would open up a set of questions for the scientists. These include, "How are our eyes able to detect such tiny units of light?" and "How can human learn from their structure to make artificial detectors more accurate?"

Vaziri would like to unravel answers from questions such as "How does a biological system achieve such sensitivity?" and "How does it achieve this in the presence of noise?" The team is planning to test how the visual system of humans responds to photons in various quantum states.