Great question from a young patient... Why are the red Christmas lights clearer than the green Christmas lights? The answer is in optics... remember way back to high school (or a Pink Floyd album cover for us old enough!) when you did an experiment to split white light into many colours with a prism. White light is made of all colours. When you shine this through a prism the blue & green (high energy) light bends more through the prism more than red light (low energy). The natural lens of your eye acts somewhat like a prism. Red light bends less through your eye lens than green... and for someone who is nearsighted, this translates to a clearer image because the lens is overly strong. So, we know the young patient above is nearsighted even before the eye exam begins. Someone with perfect vision would be less likely to see a difference in the clarity of the different coloured lights. dr.j PS - This is also why a rainbow forms
