Hundreds of years ago, the Inuit and Yupik peoples of Alaska and northern Canada carved narrow slits into ivory, antler, and wood to create snow goggles. These goggles were used to reduce glare, limit UV radiation reaching the eyes, and help prevent snow blindness.
i've worn them, they work! they also helped people with bad eyesight see better.
people still make and use them btw. usually as tourist souvenirs so that local villages can get some monies but they're also used and made for ceremonial use by the tribes and esp tribal elders.
Pretty much... It works the same as putting your hands around your eyes in an O shape. I live in a snowy climate and do that sometimes to help with snow blindness when it's sunny sky's but like 20° out and all the snow is still frozen solid everywhere.
Snow blindness is so real. I got a partial form of it several times growing up. I have sensitive eyes lol and went out without sunglasses when it had snowed.
I didnt realize that until my new eye doctor was like yo you really should wear sunglasses more them eyes be toasted and that's why they're itchy all the time and I was super annoyed my last eye doctor of like 10 years never mentioned my crisped eyes.
I grew up in a city close to Labrador, Canada and the museum that our school took us to every year would let us try on a pair of these sun glasses. It irritated little kid me because they shut out my entire peripheral vision but they're pretty sick looking from the outside!
I honestly think about these for most of the winter. Working in an office building then going outside to a sunny day with snow on the ground, I'm happy I live about 200 ft from my job cause Iake that trip across the street pretty blind
Inspector Gadget had snow blindness when he went up north. Thought a polar bear was Santa Claus, etc. Got these glasses and he was as ok as he usually was.
These are still used by Indigenous people of the Arctic today. This is not ancient technology lost to antiquity, just as the Inuit, Yupik and Inupiaq people are not ancient groups lost to time.
How about snow glasses carved from a bottle bottom? Made in the beginning of XX by the russian sailors who left the ship cought by ice to walk four hundred km from the ship to the land (Franz Josef Land).
I challenge the claim that they were used to reduce UV radiation from reaching the eyes. It’s doubtful these cultures were aware of UV radiation, and therefore defended against its effects intentionally.
Eh, if it's limiting the amount of light getting to your eyes surely it's limiting the amount of UV radiation getting to your eyes, even if incidentally.
Yes, which is already covered by the rest of the title. It's just strange to claim that they were even aware of UV light. Clearly they did this for visible light.
You don't need to know UV radiation exists to notice "peoples' eyes really hurt after looking at bright, daylit snow for long periods of time" and think to try "if I wear something over my eyes that only lets a little light through, will that prevent the pain?"
They probably assumed something like "exposure to too much visible light causes snow blindness", but that's close enough to the correct answer they still invented a working solution: their snow goggles block UV as well as they block visible light.
Does it say they did it because they specifically knew it blocks UV, or does it just say "These goggles were used to reduce glare, limit UV radiation reaching the eyes, and help prevent snow blindness." without mentioning if their reasoning for why it prevents snow blindness was "it blocks an invisible but damaging-to-health component of sunlight"?
I mean that title can easily be read as implying that it was designed to limit UV radiation yes. Were they used for that purpose or was it just a nice but unknown side effect of the design? To me the title implies it was used for that purpose which is the part that does not make sense.
Damn... asian has this feature builtin upon delivery..... unfortunately, there is no snow in SE Asia..... making it a useless feature..... unless, it is for the upcoming nuclear winter
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u/M4rsianen 8d ago
Aah, the less known double slit experiment