Eyewear Innovation: Autofocus Lenses?
The basic design for eyeglasses has been around since antiquity. Altering the shape of a spectacle lens bends incoming light rays so that, upon entering the eye, an image lands precisely on the retina. Nearsighted myopes wear lenses with concave surfaces that generate minus focusing power, whereas farsighted hyperopes are corrected with convex lenses that provide plus focusing power.
Here's a quick quiz: Do you recall who is credited with inventing bifocal spectacles? (answer posted below).
Optical scientists at the University of Arizona (a major vision research institute) have announced a novel spectacle lens design that requires no lens grinding and permits prescription updates to be programmed with a computer. Researchers have applied the physics of the familiar liquid crystal display (LCD) to prescription eyewear.
Similar to a laptop computer screen (like the one being used to compose this blog,) UA inventors created a sandwich made of two pieces of flat glass separated by an ultra-delicate film of liquid crystal. This inner layer is only one twentieth the width of a human hair.
Light rays penetrating this transparent 'sandwich' are bent depending on the orientation of the liquid crystal molecules. It only takes a tiny bit of electricity to manipulate these molecules and customize the specific optical qualities of these remarkable 'liquid lenses'.
The first prototype was designed to be used as a bifocal - flick the switch to see at near. In the future UA researchers hope to develop a full-time LCD spectacle that will continuously autofocus in response to the wearer's instantaneous visual requirements. Very cool, indeed!
(Quiz answer: Benjamin Franklin invented bifocal spectacles in 1785).
Related Topics: Common Vision Problems , Vision Problems in Aging Adults
Technorati Tags: eyeglasses, vision, innovation
Here's a quick quiz: Do you recall who is credited with inventing bifocal spectacles? (answer posted below).
Optical scientists at the University of Arizona (a major vision research institute) have announced a novel spectacle lens design that requires no lens grinding and permits prescription updates to be programmed with a computer. Researchers have applied the physics of the familiar liquid crystal display (LCD) to prescription eyewear.
Similar to a laptop computer screen (like the one being used to compose this blog,) UA inventors created a sandwich made of two pieces of flat glass separated by an ultra-delicate film of liquid crystal. This inner layer is only one twentieth the width of a human hair.
Light rays penetrating this transparent 'sandwich' are bent depending on the orientation of the liquid crystal molecules. It only takes a tiny bit of electricity to manipulate these molecules and customize the specific optical qualities of these remarkable 'liquid lenses'.
The first prototype was designed to be used as a bifocal - flick the switch to see at near. In the future UA researchers hope to develop a full-time LCD spectacle that will continuously autofocus in response to the wearer's instantaneous visual requirements. Very cool, indeed!
(Quiz answer: Benjamin Franklin invented bifocal spectacles in 1785).
Related Topics: Common Vision Problems , Vision Problems in Aging Adults
Technorati Tags: eyeglasses, vision, innovation
3 Comments:
Liz here from I Speak of Dreams.
Your readers may be interested in the site Eyeglasses Through the Ages, which I present in part:
We generally take for granted one of the world’s most important inventions – spectacles. Imagine what life would be like not being able to see images clearly or sharply. According to a January 11, 1999 feature article in Newsweek Magazine , reading glasses are one of the most important inventions of the past 2000 years. They developed because of the work of artisans, like glassmakers, jewelers and clockmakers, along with some of the most brilliant scientific minds over the centuries. According to Dr. J. William Rosenthal, "Philosophers, monks, mathematicians, physicists, microscopists, astronomers, and chemists all played vital roles in developing this instrument." 1
via BoingBoing
How so very true that we take glasses for granted. Actually, I really do not see people wearing glasses so much as I did when I was younger, and I got my first pair when I was six in 1961. Now I have bifocals and I am getting used to not tripping over the cat, or resisting the temptation to peek over my lenses to read small print, and men are still flocking to my side! I think people have lost a connection to the importance of glasses, and how we all share this one disability-like looking for your glasses in the AM, in the first place. the "invisible" is so much more fashionable, but even contact wearers and lasik people have to wake up to cloudy vision, even if for one or two seconds, right? My aunt, 78 years of age, will still not get her glasses-she claims she has never needed glasses until she had a stroke recently, and has retina damage. It galls her that she must shelve her vanity to wear "those ghastly things", no matter how chic and movie star quality glasses have become.
my granddughters parents--have been told she is farsighted(10 months old)--is there a surgical procedure to correct this--and does it improve on its own
Thanks
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