400 Years Later: How One Man's Discovery Still Improves Lives Today
For centuries, people have been wearing eyeglasses to improve their vision, but no one knew how to correctly prescribe them until the 17th century. It was Christiaan Huygens, a Dutch physicist and mathematician, who first developed a method for determining the correct prescription for eyeglasses. This revolutionary invention has been helping people see clearly for over 350 years now, and is still in use today!
Christiaan Huygens’ breakthrough came about in 1629, when he put together a device made up of a flat lens and a pinhole. By holding this device up to a person’s eye, Huygens was able to measure the curvature of their eye and create a prescription that was tailored to their needs. This method was the first accurate way to determine the power of lenses needed to correct various vision problems. It was a major step forward in the field of optometry and helped pave the way for today’s eyeglasses.
source: Phys.org