- The mutant known as Cyclops has been around
for almost 50 years, making his debut
in the very first X-Men comic.
And in that time, his powers have become iconic.
The ability to shoot energy beams out of his eyes.
But wouldn't having light coming out
of the inside of your eyes at all times
interfere with your ability to, you know, see stuff?
That's what we're here to find out.
(techno music)
Like any superhero with decades of history,
the explanation of Cyclops' powers is kind of complicated.
But in essence, Cyclops' body absorbs radiation
from the world around him, which opens at will,
stick with me now, portals to another universe
filled entirely with energy inside of Scott's eyes.
This energy is held at bay and focused
by Cyclops' famous visor and glasses
but the question still stands.
How the heck does he see through all this nonsense?
Most of you that I asked this question
went with a common sense answer.
In the comics, and TV shows, and movies,
Cyclops can see, so he can see.
Okay, fine, but I wanna go one step further.
How does he see?
Let's start with human eye anatomy.
We'll just have to accept that portals
to another dimension open up inside of Cyclops' eyes.
Fine, again, but where?
At his pupils, where incoming light
can be controlled like the aperture on a camera?
Mmm, I don't think so.
If the portal was right at Cyclops' pupil,
then all the incoming light would be
going not into the back of his eyes
where vision would happen, but into another dimension,
which would make him blind.
Okay, so what if we put the portals
more inside of Cyclops' eyes, like in the center?
(grunts) Nah.
If the portal formed right in the center of Cyclops' eyes,
then all of the light coming from his optic blast
would overwhelm his retinas,
where your rods and cones turn
the detection of photons into vision.
This would make him (sings) blind, again.
Is there anywhere these portals can be?
In accordance with eye anatomy, I think so,
but I wanna show you where with a little science experiment.
Okay, first choose one of these objects
that you wanna look at.
Not all of you are on the same device
so this might take a little bit of finagling.
Choose one object and then close the eye
on the same side of that object.
Then, look at that object with your open eye.
Now, move your face closer and further away from your screen
until the object that you did not choose disappears.
You might even wanna try to pause the video
and give this a try, I'll wait.
(suspenseful music)
Did it work? Science!
You just located your blind spot.
All of the information that is turned into vision
by your brain flows through your optic nerve.
But the connection for this optic nerve actually covers
some of your retina in what's called an optic disc.
You don't notice this blank spot in your vision,
this blind spot, because your brain edits it out
and fills it in with its own information,
which kind of makes conscious reality a lie.
Huh, but this does give us a perfect spot
to put Cyclops' eye portals.
If the portals in Cyclops' eyes were tiny, tiny holes,
like pinholes, on his blind spots,
then it shouldn't affect his vision anymore
than a blind spot already does,
and in this configuration, the energy and light
could even use his eyes' lenses for focusing.
That works.
So with the right configuration,
these portals should allow Cyclops to both see and shoot.
However, there are problems with this.
(yells)
The first problem is that because of his eyes' lenses,
his blasts come out slightly upwards like this,
but have you ever noticed that when Cyclops fires,
he kinda leans forward a little bit with his head?
See, problem solved, kind of.
The other problem is with eyes in general.
Your eyes are never perfectly still,
they're constantly making microsaccades,
or tiny involuntary movements.
Imagine trying to aim an optic blast
when your eyes are literally doing this constantly.
Yeah, you don't notice that,
because your brain is always editing
the footage of your life into
the movie that is consciousness,
making your life (serious violin music)
kind of a lie.
But maybe Cyclops has a mutation
to deal with these microsaccades.
Lastly, and this is honestly more of an aesthetic problem,
because Scott's eyes are always firing when open,
even if he can see, the inside of his glasses
always look like this.
With tiny lasers tracing out
where his eyes are looking at the inside of his glasses
at all times, that is dumb.
But, that doesn't matter, because if pinhole portals
to an energy dimension are placed over Cyclops' blind spots,
then he should be able to
fire his optic blasts and see just fine.
I am giving Scott all of the benefits
of all the doubts here, but maybe I'm just prone
to see the world through rose-colored glasses.
Because science.
See what I did there?
Wow.
(techno music)
Thank you so much for watching.
On my previous video about werewolves and the moon,
a lot of you took issue with what the moon is actually doing
and mentioned its effect on stuff like violent crime.
That's a myth.
If you look at the statistics, on average,
no more crimes or hospital admissions happen
during a full moon than any other night.
Because science.
You want some proof that tiny pinhole portals
open up inside Scott Summers' eyes?
Here you go, look at that clip.
Boom, validated.
(electronic music)