Pirates eye patches why

Code of Conduct. Gift Certificates. Group Visits. Birthday Parties. Private Events. Special Events. Full Calendar. Public Events. Family Programs. Homeschool Programs. Girl Scout Events. Member Events.

Museum at Home. Holiday Events. Join Our Team. Traveling Exhibits. In the dead of darkness, pirates had to be able to not only maneuver through their vast ships with windowless corridors and minimal lighting, but also jump from ship to ship in the dark. Plus, they fought battles with adversaries under the cover of darkness too.

After all, surprising unassuming opponents at night was a proven method of success. Over time, swashbucklers who often found themselves embroiled in combat had learned how to adapt. Of course, the only way to move stealthily through the dark of night was to utilize your eyes to the fullest. Your eyes, while capable of doing amazing things, have a built-in delay when trying to switch from light to darkness. It actually takes 20 minutes for your eyes to adjust to night vision.

One flash of light restarts the clock. This occurs because of the rhodopsin that naturally exists in your rods. The above deck environment presents a bright environment unless if its nighttime or stormy skies , and the below deck environment presents a dark environment, with candles probably being the sole illumination. The Dark Adaptation Curve: As time in darkness continues, more rods are activated.

Now imagine when you have gone from an area of light to an area of darkness. The process of adjusting to the new environment was not instantaneous; in fact it took some time.

Specifically, that adjustment time is on average measured to be 25 minutes. This process, of adjusting from a light environment to a dark environment, is known as dark adaptation and involves a variety of chemical processes to occur in the retina, located in the back of the eye.

The retina must regenerate a compound known as rhodopsin and also increase sensitivity of rods. In contrast to this, light adaptation, the process of adjusting from a dark environment to a light environment, means the retina must decrease the amount of rhodopsin and increase the sensitivity of functioning cones. By covering one eye with a patch, that eye is perpetually left in a dark-adapted state.

MythBusters tested this hypothesis in their pirate special in and determined that it was plausible only the lack of historical sources kept it from being confirmed. At least one military manual for pilots pointed out that "Even though a bright light may shine in one eye, the other will retain its dark adaptation, if it is protected from the light.