Why does it takes time to see in a dimly lit room when you enter from a brightly lit area?

Answer 1

Your eyes are very clever pieces of equipment. The amount of light in a dark room compared to sun light is 1000s of times different, so your eyes need to adjust to the amount of light to allow you to see things. In the dark, it will increase the size of your iris, which lets light in to the eye. When its bright, the iris shrinks to let a smaller amount of light through. The increasing and decreasing of the iris can take several seconds to adjust which is why at first you cant see anything in a dark room. If too much light enters the eye, it will permanently damage the light sensors (the rentner) at the back of your eye render you blind.

Answer 2

Your eyes adapt to various light conditions by increasing or restricting the size of the pupil(the black hole in the middle of your eye). When you've been out in the sun the pupil is tiny and only allowing a little light to enter. Then when you go into the dark room there isn't enough light left that gets through the narrow pupil to give a clear image. There are other adaptations too, but this is the most obvious one. Spend a little time in the dark and the eye will quickly adapt to the new light level and objects will begin to appear again.

Answer 3

Your eye closes up to protect itself from the bright sunlight, then when entering a darker room must adjust by slowly opening to let more light in. To experiment stand in front af a mirror and close your eyes for a minute or two. Suddenly open your eyes and you will se the black part start out big then quickly shrink.

Answer 4

It is because your eyes have to dilate and get to a new position to see in the dark or dimmed room from the sun. Your pupils get small when in a bright light or in the sun, and they get big when in the dark.

Answer 5

because your eyes adjust to the light outside, via dilation. This is the reason pirates wore eyepatches, because they would constantly go below deck and in order to see they would use the eye underneath the eyepatch that was used to the darkness.

Answer 6

Basically, there's a protein in your eye that blocks some of the light coming in if its too bright. That's why when you look at the sun or another bright object, there's a dark spot where it was.

Secondly, there's the iris, which opens and closes to let more or less light in, which doesn't happen instantaneously.

Answer 7

the pupil of the eye dilates, causing the person to see nothing for a short period, this happens because the pupil is adjusting to its vision hence suddenly everything is apparent.

Answer 8

Because it's hard to see in the dark