[mysterypie]

That's one of the best explanations I heard about why and how the eye damage can occur. I'm curious how far can you carry that reasoning: If 99.9999999% of the sun were covered during a partial eclipse (down to a single stream of photons), does it damage one single rod on my retina as opposed to a crescent-shaped region? I'm guessing that a single stream of photons from the sun doesn't have enough energy to do any damage.

[Stratoscope]

Now that is an interesting question!

Anecdotally, I viewed the 1979 total eclipse with binoculars (and no filters), and at the end of totality I continued to look through them for a few seconds to see the diamond ring and Baily's beads.

It didn't harm my vision at all, even though there was some fair amount of direct sunlight coming through by then. But it was only a few seconds. The duration of sun exposure certainly is a factor.