<p>Or, how can a kid smart enough to be a NMF and graduate from a top college be dumb enough to glance at a solar eclipse through a dark translucent frisbee! Now I’ve got him scared to death that he’ll go blind. I already told him to see an ophthalmologist if he has blurry vision or spots, and that if he has no symptoms by morning, he should be OK. Any advice?</p>
<p>Deep breaths. He is probably fine. How long did he gaze up?</p>
<p>He says no more than 25 seconds at a max, mostly only 10 seconds at a time. He was looking through that frisbee but I doubt it had UV protection. He’s the panicky type so now I feel bad that I said anything but I didn’t want him to ignore the possibility of a problem so wanted to alert him. I promise I never used the phrase, how can someone so smart be so dumb.</p>
<p>If he suffered acute damage he’d have a excessive blinking and tearing and/or a sore, sand-in-my-eyes feeling. Chronic damage could result in development of cataracts.</p>
<p>Galileo was almost totally blind in his old age due to repeated damage from studying solar eclipses.</p>