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Re:Some cities are taking another look at LED lighting after... by sandworm101 on Sunday September 25, 2016 @02:02PM (#12576447)
In practice, I could see a simple description of the intensity of visible along with a percentage of the 'bad' light within that intensity. That is an analog for how our eyes actually function. We have a retina that sees specific wavelengths, but an iris that regulates the amount of light hitting the retina based on an average intensity across the visible spectrum.

Harm comes to our eyes when 'unnatural' non-blackbody light plays tricks with the system. Looking at an eclipse isn't harmful because of some new light that only exists during an eclipse. It's because the darkness allows our iris to open despite the presence of harmful UV light. (The same goes for vintage sunglasses that don't block UV.) So to discuss the biological safety of light one needs, at a minimum, both the average intensity to judge how open the iris will be, and some reference for how much harmful light is present. Imho that can be expressed as an intensity and a percentage. An eclipse is a low visible intensity with a high percentage of harmful light. These blue-heavy LEDs could be similarly described.

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