Quote:

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Mankind's lifestyle changed significantly with the invention of the lightbulb

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Yes, it has. And you don't have to speculate about that, because a significant fraction of the people in the world still live in places without electricity.

Traveling around India, I've noticed quite a striking difference between towns with electricity and the (decreasingly common) ones without. But even without electricity, people there still live a lot of their lives after sunset, for the simple reason that it's too hot to do much when the Sun is high in the sky. Sleeping during the day and being active at night is very common in the tropics.

Remember that fire was used for artificial lighting long before the species Homo Sapiens evolved. Of course, the light from fire is very different from electric light. I often wonder if the fact that red light doesn't kill dark adaptation is an evolutionary response to the use of fire for nighttime illumination.

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Tony Flanders

eyeglasses
6x15 and 8x32 monoculars
8x25, 7x35, 10x30 IS, 10x50, and 15x70 binoculars
70mm and 100mm achromatic refractors
4.5", 7", and 12.5" Dobs

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