Inventor's 2020 vision: to help 1bn of the world's poorest see better

[Posteritatis]

Have some awesome!

It was a chance conversation on March 23 1985 ("in the afternoon, as I recall") that first started Josh Silver on his quest to make the world's poor see. A professor of physics at Oxford University, Silver was idly discussing optical lenses with a colleague, wondering whether they might be adjusted without the need for expensive specialist equipment, when the lightbulb of inspiration first flickered above his head.

What if it were possible, he thought, to make a pair of glasses which, instead of requiring an optician, could be "tuned" by the wearer to correct his or her own vision? Might it be possible to bring affordable spectacles to millions who would never otherwise have them?

More than two decades after posing that question, Silver now feels he has the answer. The British inventor has embarked on a quest that is breathtakingly ambitious, but which he insists is achievable - to offer glasses to a billion of the world's poorest people by 2020.

This is fantastic, to say the very least.

[DJ13]

1. Any bets the opticians here in the US try to keep them out of the country?

[Posteritatis]

2. Not really, no. (nt)

[HysteryDiagnosis]

3. Who in the hell wants to look like this??

[Posteritatis]

4. I dunno, maybe people who can't see?

But yeah, if you can't get designer glasses, it's clearly preferable not to be able to see well enough to function in life.

Good lord, someone comes up with a way to provide low-cost eyesight to the developing world and all people can do is bitch and moan about optometrists' conspiracies and fashion. Nice to see where priorities are around here. :eyes:

[HysteryDiagnosis]

5. I'm standing in the corner now. nt

[Manifestor_of_Light]

6. people who don't wear glasses are spoiled.

I have no sympathy for people who have perfect vision until they need reading glasses after age forty, and whine about wearing those.

Some of us can't function without our glasses. I needed glasses when I was little.

I read books that were very close to my face when I was little.

Mom finally took me to the eye doctor when I was in second grade and found out I needed glasses badly.

She said she felt real stupid. I still can't see any farther away than six inches without my glasses. I can see much better in contacts, but they are a hassle, and I can't sleep in them.

Mom and Dad and sis all had perfect eyesight. Mom and Dad only wore reading glasses until they got really old.

I feel very fortunate to have normal color and normal stereo vision, and only need a correction for nearsighted ness.

I was in a community opera production once, and another soprano kept bugging me about my glasses. She said things like "why don't you get laser surgery" and was acting like she had never met anyone who wore glasses all the time. It was the most childish thing I've ever seen.
I told the director that if I could not wear my glasses on stage, I was leaving, because I was not going to fall off the stage or down stairs.

And the woman who bugged me about it wore reading glasses. Absolutely immature and stupid.


The lead baritone told me I was beautiful when we were made up for the stage!!! (SWOON)!!!
Even with glasses on!!!