Can you damage your eyes if you look directly at a lit 100 watt bulb?

It all depends on how far away you are, and how much ambient light there is already, But no, even holding your face eight inches away in a dark room won’t do any significant damage. Your pupils will contract so no damage is done.

If you hold it close enough, you might melt your eyes. I will never forget sitting my glow-in-the-dark ghost pirate o’ the Caribbean doll next to a lamp’s light bulb (not touching it) to charge it up quickly, and coming back to find an arm had melted off!

If you really want, yes it does.
Try to bring it as close as possible and look
Eye to eye. ;))

My guess is you can. I’ve read that even the light from bright computer screens can have to damage over time to the refina. I don’t know if that’s been proven, or was just a fear people had.

If I look at a light directly my eyes hurt, so my guess is lights can cause damage. Especially, the whiter/bluer bulbs hurt my eyes.

I’ll be following this Q to see what others say.

Just please, no one do experiments with actual living people’s eyes…

Well, the surface temperature of a light bulb is between 50 and 100 degrees.
Human enzymes and proteins start to break down at 40 degrees and up.
So you could literally cook your eyes, if you get very close.

Don’t look at the light.
Don’t go into the light.
It’s not your time.