in addition to the ones listed by agentgray in all the fantastic advantages an invisible man would have in the world:

  • he would be blind. Yes, blind. As in, "unable to see." If he and thus his eyes are invisible, how is light going to be absorbed by them, allowing him to see anything?
  • No one could be careful not to injure him, because they can't see him. the truck that would ordinarily yield to him in the crosswalk doesn't know that he is there.1 So he has to be really careful, all the time...
  • He would have to be naked, to be truly invisible. Well, to be fair, that's a plus and a minus; nudists would probably think that that was pretty neat, but by and large, clothes are a good thing.
  • He would have to stay really, really clean, or a (visible) layer of dust and grime would start to form on his skin.
  • AND HE WOULD BE BLIND, MAN! But's that's the price you pay, to be an invisible man, I guess...

1Yes, I did, in fact, steal that example from an episode of The X-Files

In the early 1960s sci-fi writer Fredric Brown wrote a series of short stories under the umbrella title 'Great Lost Discoveries'. The three he completed related the tales of how invisibility, immortality, and invulnerability were discovered, and quickly thereafter lost by unexpected quirks of fate.

In 'Great Lost Discoveries 1', Brown makes the observation that invisibility is useless in the dark - his unpleasant protagonist breaks into a harem in order to molest the harem-girls (a common fantasy amongst those of us who wish to become invisible), and is summarily killed by a scimitar-wielding guard who has acute hearing.

It's currently available in the excellent "From these ashes : the complete short SF of Fredric Brown".

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