OPTICAL LENSES - (LATE 13TH CENTURY)

For the avid readers and academics among us, it can seem pretty cruel that our eyesight isn’t always as perfect as we’d like it to be. Whilst everyone will eventually succumb to a decidedly more blurry view of the world, there are a great many people who suffer with poor vision much, much earlier. ‘Luckily’ for those of centuries long past, there wasn’t a lot of reading material knocking around at the time and optometry wasn’t exactly a cornerstone profession of the ancient world. Of course that didn’t stop our great ancestors from exercising a bit of good old human curiosity when it came to the magnifying properties of glass and crystal. The absolute shining example of this (which you have to hope is true) occurred when the brilliant Archimedes allegedly built a freaking DEATH RAY to take on the Roman navy in 212 BC. But comic book super weapons aside, the use of shaped glass as an effective optical device wouldn’t arise until the late 13th century, which finally allowed scholars of the day to pull much less awkward, squinty faces when they went about their studies. Needless to say, the desire for lenses only grew stronger with the increase of available information, notably spearheaded by the arrival of the printing press. However, given the delicate nature of the process and the incredible skill required to make lenses fit for purpose, it would be many more centuries before they reached their next major milestone under American big shot Benjamin Franklin. He is believed to be responsible for the invention of the bifocals; a type of eyeglass designed to combat cases of both long and short sightedness. It seems fairly obvious that improved optics of any kind were a good thing with any who saw a benefit in their use, but the impact was actually much, much greater. Getting older and having your eyesight fail no longer meant that you couldn’t enjoy digging into the next big academic thesis and extended the learning of some very smart people by decades. If you need any proof of this making a difference, checkout the history of civilisations who took just that little bit longer to invent their own eyeglass. Also kudos if you made it to the end before googling ‘Archimedes death ray’.