From how far away is radiated energy of photons effective?

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SUMMARY

The discussion centers on calculating the distance from which the human eye can detect photons emitted from a 200W light bulb, specifically at a wavelength of 400 nm. The eye requires a minimum of 100 photons per second to register light, and the calculations show that at a surface area of 4E-6 m², the bulb emits approximately 1.6E15 photons per second. The challenge lies in determining the distance at which the photon flux decreases to this threshold. The key takeaway is that the intensity of light diminishes with distance, necessitating further calculations to establish the effective range for photon detection.

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windowofhope
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I'm faced with a problem here and would really appreciate anyone's help. The question is paraphrased as follows:
The eye can respond to single photons but there are certain requirements from the eye: it must receive at least 100 photons/s to process it. Assume the eye to have an area of 4E-6 m^2, from how far away can the eye pick up the radiated energy of a 400 nm wavelength photon from a 200W light bulb?

So I know that the photon flux is equal to the poynting vector (in W/m^2) divided by the energy of each photon i.e |S|/hf=S*Area*lambda/(hc).. I do (200W/m^2)*(4E-6 m^2)*(400E-9m)/(6.63E-34Js)(3E8m/s) = 1.6E15 photons/s which is clearly greater than the required 100 photons/s required for the eye to register the light. However, the formula doesn't say anything about distance away from the source.. All I know is that the surface of the eye picks up 1.6E15 photons/s but have no information as to what distance that is from and how much mroe distance until it gets reduced down to 100 photons/s. Any help would be really awesome!

thank you
 
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So, you know the total number of photons radiated per second, and you know that they are radiated outwards equally in all directions.

What the question is asking is how far away do you have to be so that the number of photons hitting your eye is a small enough fraction compared to the total number of photons in all directions so that you'll barely register seeing anything from that source.
 

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