Could one see a fired bullet pass in front of their eyes?

Fwiw, i could quite easily see BBs fired from my Red Ryder as a kid. I’ve never seen a non tracer bullet though. Heard them though.

Isn’t reflected light how objects are normally seen, since most objects don’t actually produce light of their own?

Maybe we could fire a high intensity laser at the bullet as it travels across your field of view. That’s just like seeing it normally, right?

The OP’s question was; lacking any other stimulus, could a person standing looking straight ahead be able to see a bullet travel across their field of view. Under anything that might be construed as “normal” circumstances, I’d say the answer is no.

We *could *think ways to set up an elaborate system where it might be possible to see it, sure. But is that really the same thing?

I’ll accept the possibility of catching a momentary glint of reflection in a bright-lit indoor range or a brightly-sunlit outdoor range, neither location being particularly exotic or contrived. It would be rare, of course. Impossible? Nah.

No. But they would feel the shock wave of the bullet traveling faster than sound.
It can temp deafen if coming close to the ear and break blood vessels in the eye even while the lids are closed.

When I’m firing my shotgun upwards, I can easily see the cloud of shot against the sky, and it’s got a muzzle velocity of 1375 FPS.

I think a bullet traveling perpendicular to your line of sight would be more difficult, as it’s just one small thing instead of a cloud of small things, and it wouldn’t be in your field of vision for long. You might be able to see some kind of distortion in the air against the right kind of background, though, from the shockwave.

The easy visibility of tracers makes it clear that it’s not so much that bullets are travelling too fast to see, it’s that they are small and far away pretty quickly. When I was young I thought tracers must move a lot slower than regular bullets, I was surprised to find out that they are about the same speed, just a lot easier to see.

Again, I’ve been witness to it. No elaborate system or unusual circumstance. Again, it was a .45 caliber automatic pistol. They are designed for stopping power not penetration. Large caliber, slow muzzle velocity. It wasn’t reflection. It was obviously a bullet and only for a millisecond but very perceptible. You see it about 10 feet or so after it leaves the muzzle. Try it out. Send the problem to Mythbusters. They’ll see it.

I’ve seen .45s and, believe it or not, 30-30 bullets in flight. The 30-30 was from about 10 to the side of the person firing. You could also look down and see the shadow of the bullet on the ground. It was all very fast. You couldn’t watch it go downrange, you’d just see a brief blur.

I dunno about seeing it 1 foot from your face, that’s not much exposure time. 10 feet against a solid background maybe. You’d certainly hear it from 1 foot, supersonic or not.

As a general rule, your mind will see what it expects to see wither the eye actually can see it.

So, for those who have never been shot at and it missed their head by a foot will not get it.

Those that have might very justly claim that they did see it even if their eyes were closed. The eye does not see anything, the brain does. The eye is just a lens and a coder circuit to the brain.

Or if you prefer, if the eye is taking the picture just as the bullet passes and your focus is correct for some reason, you are reading a book and the bullet goes just above the pages, even with all other senses blocked ( silly assumption) then if you have ‘been there done that’ you will get it.

Is the lens good enough? Yes.
Is the transmission to the brain that sees good enough? Depends.
Is the brain good enough to see the transmission? Under the right circumstances and with the right training. ( expericence ), I have to say yes.

Go out and do actual experiments if you want a real actual answer. If not the stones to do dat, then there is no absolute answer for you. Got it? :wink:

YMMV

.45 rounds are (usually?) subsonic, that’s probably the difference.