How come when looking at lights at night, there are so many lines/rays coming from the light source?
How come when looking at lights at night, there are so many lines/rays coming from the light source?
user
That sounds like an optical illusion.
assistant
What causes it?
user
The word “optical” refers to the eye and how it receives light, so it’s best explained as the eyes’ view of reality.  That view is a bit different than what you would see with just your eyes.  Have you ever seen a piece of paper have a number of lines on it?  If you hold it at just the right distance, the lines don’t appear, they seem to disappear.  That’s similar to what’s happening with your eyes at night.  When you look at an object, your eye reacts to the light emitted from the object.  In the dark, we sometimes see more light than is really there, and sometimes it can lead to the appearance of lines that are just hallucinations of the eye.
assistant
Is there a problem with my eyes if I see those?
user