Developments in Optical Vision Sciences with Brief Biographies from Pre-Historic times till the Nineteenth Century with Applications in Eye-Care. Karan R. Gregg Aggarwala, OD (NIH Equiv), MS, PhD, FAAO New York City The writing of this essay was initiated in year 2013; revised on several occasions into its current form on or before August 16, 2019 CE, Friday. Introduction In chronological order by year of birth, this list of famous people (born 1801 CE or before) and their brief biographies, documents the major achievements of philosophers, mathematicians, astronomers, physicists, lens makers, scientists, physiologists and optical engineers, on which present day optical, optometric, ophthalmic instrument, and developments in computing became permissible and were realized. These individuals were born in, or worked, mostly in the Near East, Western Eurasia, and the United States of America. Discoveries from other world regions, especially China, Japan, and South Asia, are not documented in this review, though I would gladly include these as the information becomes available, Criteria for Inclusion The contributors selected in this list of biographies have been selected based on a few criteria— one is my personal memory from classes in optometry, ophthalmic sciences, visual optics, and vision science, of their known contributions, and others based on recent subject area searches. These criteria are clearly not comprehensive, and a wider selection may be necessary for a discerning reviewer. Another criterion is their inclusion in the Hutchinson Dictionary of Scientists (1)
Transcript
Developments in Optical Vision Sciences with Brief Biographies from Pre-Historic times till the Nineteenth Century with Applications in Eye-Care.Karan R. Gregg Aggarwala, OD (NIH Equiv), MS, PhD, FAAO
New York City
The writing of this essay was initiated in year 2013; revised on several occasions into its current form on or before August 16, 2019 CE, Friday.
Introduction
In chronological order by year of birth, this list of famous people (born 1801 CE or before) and their brief biographies, documents the major achievements of philosophers, mathematicians, astronomers, physicists, lens makers, scientists, physiologists and optical engineers, on which present day optical, optometric, ophthalmic instrument, and developments in computing became permissible and were realized. These individuals were born in, or worked, mostly in the Near East, Western Eurasia, and the United States of America. Discoveries from other world regions, especially China, Japan, and South Asia, are not documented in this review, though I would gladly include these as the information becomes available,
Criteria for Inclusion
The contributors selected in this list of biographies have been selected based on a few criteria— one is my personal memory from classes in optometry, ophthalmic sciences, visual optics, and vision science, of their known contributions, and others based on recent subject area searches. These criteria are clearly not comprehensive, and a wider selection may be necessary for a discerning reviewer. Another criterion is their inclusion in the Hutchinson Dictionary of Scientists (1) or in The Physics Book (2). Some of biographical content is derived from Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia (3), but peer reviewed journal articles, book biographies by respected authors, university web sites, and standard textbooks on physiology are also consulted. Interpretations, commentaries and opinions are my own, and reflect personal biases based on training and experience.
Key contributors such as Hermann von Helmholtz , Jan Evangelista Purkinje, and Witelo deserve accolades and expansive elaboration in perhaps another essay or a future revised version of this one, featuring the historical development of visual optics in the Middle Ages in Europe
following the work of Alhazen. Still other domains of expertise that have contributed to our present day optometry and ophthalmology practices include the anatomists and physiologists of the retina, especially Santiago Ramon y Cajal, cranial and peripheral nerve physiologists, psychophysical and cortical process elucidators, experimental and perceptual psychologists, artists and scientists employing principles of visual perspective, visual illusion, chromatic texture, colour and space constancy, innovators of binocular disparity serving depth perception, eye movement physiologists, developmental biologists, metabolic and blood flow dynamic scientists, clinical, probing, and surgical instrument designers, researchers of non-human biotic communities, ecologists, ethologists, and many others.
Acknowledging all these contributors is a worthy endeavour but I do not have the facility to undertake this task at the present moment—though it may be worthwhile for faculty at academic departments of various universities to kindly consider such an undertaking. After all, just as Isaac Newton acknowledged that his work was possible only by the contributions of intellectual giants before him, so present day clinicians in eye care (e.g. optometrists and ophthalmologists) and manufacturers of diagnostic, pharmaceutical, surgical and nutritional interventions, would do well to acknowledge such contributions from diverse domains presaging their clinical or commercial applications. I now begin this essay with archaeological findings for which place names can be cited but no individual names are known.
Optics in ancient civilizations
A historical survey of ancient texts reveals that light, optics and vision have been studied in various ancient civilizations, including ancient Egypt, Greece, Babylon and India (4), and China (5). Whereas the ancient Egyptians used semi-polished glass to serve as “eyes” of various sculptures depicting revered entities, the first high quality, lens-shaped crystals of diameter one inch or larger (dating back to 2200 B.C.), were discovered in Troy, in present day Turkey (formerly Anatolia), and are held at the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia (6).
Direction of travel of light energy in the visual process
The pre-Socratic philosophers Alcmaeon of Croton and Empedocles introduced the “extramission” theory of vision, further developed by Plato and Euclid, and Hero of Alexandria, which proposes that an unknown form of energy leaves the eye and captures the form of the observed entity, following which it returns to the eye. Ptolemy combined the geometry of Euclid with the anatomical findings of Galen. “Intromission” theories—now
largely verified following the work of Alhazen and Kepler, were held by Democritus, Epicurus, Lucretius, and Aristotle (7, 8). After the death of Ptolemy and Galen, scientific inquiry shifted from Europe to the Islamic world where scholars translated Greek texts in the 8th Century into Arabic. Whereas Al Kindi supported Euclid’s extramission theory of vision, Avicenna built on Aristotle’s intromission hypothesis.
Alhazen’s synthesis
Following earlier work by Al Kindi and Ibn Sahl, including the Greek literature, a synthesis regarding theories of vision was provided by Alhazen, (originally Ibn al-Haytham, also Alhacen) whose “Book of Optics” (Kitab al-Manazir, dated year 1011 to 1021 CE) in Arabic was translated into Latin in the 12th Century, inspiring Roger Bacon, Witelo, and John Pecham (9, 10, 11), and forming the basis for Kepler’s theory of optical image formation at the retina as the first stage of the visual process. In accepting Kepler’s view, the study of vision was faced with the challenge of interpreting the optical image on the retina, further developing the science of “physiological optics” originating with Alhazen (12, 13, 14), and stimulating theories of “visual perspective” based on properties of “retinal projection” informing the work of subsequent European painters, sculptors, and map makers (15).
Spectacle lens industry, Renaissance and Enlightenment scholars
The ophthalmic lens industry started in Venice, Pisa and Florence in the 13th century, and exact origins are debated (16). Several decades later, lens making developed in Holland (currently the Netherlands) e.g. with the philosopher Spinoza, and in Germany. Whereas convex lenses have origins in various geographies in earlier time periods, the invention of the use of concave lenses to correct myopia is attributed to Nicholas of Cusa in 1451 (17).
A key pioneer in optics in relation to vision (e.g. optics of the eye, or physiological optics) following the monumental work of Alhazen, was Silesian naturalist Witelo (or Vitello) son of Thuringians and Poles, whose translations from Arabic into Latin (Perspectiva, guided by mentor William of Moerbeke who also translated Archimedes) helped stimulate the subsequent work of Kepler.
The following list of major contributors to the optical sciences is presented in chronological order.
Pythagoras c. 580 to 500 BC: An early philosopher and mathematician of ancient Greece, Pythagoras classified numbers and gave them mystical properties. Born on the island of Samos, he fled a despotic ruler to
become founder of a school and brotherhood in Croton, South Italy. The school lasted a little over 50 years until it was suppressed for political and religious reasons.
The Pythagoras theorem equates the square of the length of the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle to the sum of the squares of the lengths of its perpendicular sides. Pythagoreans formulated the theory of proportions (ratios and fractions), which helped them understand and describe the harmonic motion of musical strings. Harmonic analysis forms the fundamental basis for Fourier-optics, and time-series analysis used widely in signal processing, and finds its roots in the work of Pythagoras. Interestingly, the measurement and partition of land and property by owners, builders, and administrators became possible mainly following the geometry of the Pythagoras theorem.
Euclid c. 330 to c. 260 BC: This famous mathematician used logical steps to deduce known principles of mathematics and geometry from the unknown, by what is known as the “synthetic method.” Using analytical techniques, he developed axioms of Euclidean geometry from conjectures and hypotheses. Euclid set up a school of mathematics in Alexandria (now in Egypt). His works were translated first into Arabic, and later into Latin— and from both of these languages, into various European languages. Geometry applies directly to optics because light tends to travel in straight lines except under the influence of gravity (Einstein’s General
Theory of Relativity), on interaction with edges and apertures (diffraction), and by optical media-interface effects (refraction, reflection).
Ptolemy 100 to 170 CE: Born on the banks of the river Nile, in the town of Ptolemais Hermii, Ptolemy worked in Alexandria in an observatory set up at the top of a temple. Said to be inspired by Plato, Ptolemy worked on the assumption that the Earth was shaped like a perfect sphere. The calculation of projections onto a spherical surface has modern applications in mapping the field of view of the eye (perimetry, visual field testing) and retinal imaging using scanning lasers. Ptolemy’s Geography was a standard source of information until the 16th Century— based on his maps of Asia and large parts of Africa. Recent comments on the subjectivity of map making (cartography) are noteworthy (18). According to the Polish-American philosopher Alfred Korzybski from the 1940’s, “The map is not the territory.” Further, the English anthropologist Gregory Bateson avowed, “What is on the paper map, is a representation of what was in the retinal representation of the man who made the map.” Ptolemy’s widely accepted concept of planet Earth as the centre of the Universe was toppled in 1543 CE by the astronomer Copernicus.
Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) 965 to 1038 CE: Alhazen’s Book of Optics, “Kitab al-Manazir,” was translated from Arabic to Latin as Perspectiva (Witelo) and Opticae Thesaurus (Basel, 1572 CE: Risner). His original comprehensive contributions were based on his experimental results and on his study of Greek literature, and were considered authoritative. Alhazen challenged the view held by Hero and Ptolemy that rays first emerge from the eye, capture the form of the object, and return to the eye as an “eidola.” Instead he proposed that light emerging from the Sun is reflected by objects and enters the eye to produce the sensation of vision, which is the dominant view of the present day.
Alhazen studied the image-forming properties of spherical and parabolic mirrors, and measured the refraction of light by lenses. His Book of Optics was utilized by near-Eastern philosopher-scientists (e.g. al-Farisi 1267-1320 CE), and by Western scientist-monks (e.g. Theodoric 1250-1310 CE), well into the period of the Renaissance.
Leonardo da Vinci 1452 to 1519 CE: Da Vinci received formal elementary education, and no significant schooling thereafter, having been apprenticed at the age of about 14 by his father, to the artist Andrea del Verrocchio (19) in whose guidance he learned about artistic, technical and mechanical subjects. Between 1490 and 1495 CE he produced his well-known notebooks in mirror-writing. Leonardo explored the science of painting and documented the visual cues that lead to monocular depth perception, such as geometric perspective, atmospheric haze, distance and direction of sources of illumination, and length, depth and direction of shadows.
Da Vinci also developed a theory of mechanics based on friction and resistance, with illustrations of gears, screw-based cutting machines, and hydraulic jacks. The total number of inventions attributed to Leonardo is a staggering three hundred!
Leonardo studied the flight of birds, forming the basis for modern avionics. After 1503 CE, he conducted hydrological studies for civil engineering projects and for the circulatory system of the heart, which today form the roots for the study of blood flow dynamics. Da Vinci was born in Tuscany, lived in Florence and Milan, and spent his last years in Rome and Amboise (France).
Hans Lippershey 1570 to 1619 CE: This German-born Dutch spectacle lens-maker is often credited with inventing the refracting telescope in 1608 CE (20). Lippershey's original instrument (with 3 times magnification) was termed “Dutch perspective glass,” and consisted of either two convex lenses producing an inverted image, or a convex objective and concave eyepiece leading to an upright image. The term "telescope" was coined three years later by Giovanni Demisiani. The ophthalmic lens industry started in Venice, Pisa and Florence in the 13th Century, and later expanded to the Netherlands and Germany.
Christoph Scheiner 1573 to 1650 CE: In about 1605 CE, Scheiner invented the pantograph, an instrument for making scaled copies of schematics. Scheiner built his first telescope in 1611 CE and projected the image of the Sun onto a white screen. His observations of “sunspots” and the attribution to “refraction” of the apparent elliptical form of the sun near the horizon are noteworthy. Scheiner also proposed that Venus and Mercury revolved around the Sun, and due to his fear of religious or political adversity his data were communicated under a pseudonym to Galileo and Johannes Kepler. Present day ophthalmic optical instrument designers are well aware of the “Scheiner disc” which contains a double pin-hole to help determine the focus of optical systems distinguishing between myopic and hyperopic focal planes of the eye.
Willebrord van Roijn Snell 1581 to 1626 CE: Born in Leiden, Snell developed the method of triangulation in 1615 CE, from which he made an accurate determination of the radius of the Earth. Calculations by opticians, of the sagittal depth of spherical lenses, are based on the same triangulation formulae. Snell devised the basic law of refraction— which states that the ratio of the sine of the angle of incidence to the sine of the
angle of refraction is a constant. When the initial medium is a vacuum or air, the Snell ratio approximates the refractive index of the refracting (subsequent) medium. Snell’s law was published by the mathematician Descartes in 1637 CE, and forms the basis for all monochromatic refraction by lenses and prisms.
Isaac Newton 1642 to 1727 CE: Newton was born in Lincolnshire and studied at Cambridge where he became a professor at age 26. His theories were consistent with the laws of planetary motion developed by Johannes Kepler, and Kepler’s laws helped Newton define the terms mass, weight, force, inertia, and acceleration. Newton and Leibniz worked independently on the development of differential calculus. Newton’s experiments on dispersion of polychromatic (white) light through prisms of glass inspired him to minimize chromatic aberration in his telescope by using mirrors instead of lenses. His experiments on light and colour were conducted in a darkened room with a slit-beam of sunlight entering through a window. Aside from geometric optics, Newton investigated thin-film interference and gravitation. Robert Hooke claimed to have discovered the inverse-square law of gravitation prior to Isaac Newton.
Benjamin Franklin 1706 to 1790 CE: The inventor of bifocal spectacles, Benjamin Franklin has been an inspiration to several Americans who may still believe in the moral values and work ethic of the founding fathers of the American Constitution, including the ethic of frugality or minimal waste. Aside from his late-life service as ambassador to France and his prior founding of the Post Office, Ben Franklin is famous for his 1752 “kite and key experiment” (considered dangerous to repeat) conducted just prior to a thunderstorm—which proved that lightning is a form of electricity that can be harnessed and stored in a Leiden jar (capacitor). Franklin distinguished between positive and negative electricity, and his observations predate the more quantitative research of Volta (1745-1827) that formed the basis for the flow of electrical current.
It is less commonly known that Benjamin Franklin conducted experiments on thermometer readings underneath sunlight-illuminated cloth fabrics of various colours (21). These experiments suggested that absorbed visible radiation (light) of varied spectral composition may be specified as elevations in temperature (T). Similar experiments relating light and temperature were followed up by Herschel and Fourier, and later formed the basis for Max Planck’s quantum theory (1900).
Johann Heinrich Lambert 1728 to 1777 CE: Possibly worthy of being nominated “Father of Light Measurement,” Lambert was born into a Huguenot family in the region of Alsace, France— formerly an exclave of Switzerland. In the years 1756 to 1758 he travelled to meet established mathematicians in the German states, Netherlands, France, and Italian states, and was later sponsored by Frederick II of Prussia, becoming a friend of Euler. His contributions are in mathematics (e.g. the irrationality of the geometric ratio pi- also considered by Euler and the ancient South Asian mathematician Aryabhata in 500 CE), physics and optics, philosophy, astronomy, and map projection. In his studies of non-Euclidean space and conic sections, Lambert described the hyperbolic triangle (geometry on a concave surface) in terms of its angles, instead of as the length of 3 sides, forming the background for the General Theory of Relativity based on Riemann’s geometry, and for the science of topology upon which corneal topography and retinal mapping (e.g. Optical Coherence Tomography or OCT) instruments are dependent. In his classic book on photometry (Photometria, 1760) he demonstrated that illumination is proportional to the power of the source, and inversely proportional to the square of the distance of the illuminated surface and the sine of the angle of inclination. He also developed a 3 dimensional model of color vision. The Beer-Lambert law of light absorption and the concept of Lambertian reflectance from a non-shiny, diffusely reflecting surface are named in his honor, along with the photometric unit the “lambert.” Calibration of optical, optometric and ophthalmic tests and medical and surgical devices involving light and radiation, as well as illumination standards for home, school, office and industrial lightning can be traced back to the work of Lambert. He also contributed to astral dynamics, logic, and the distinguishing of subjective from objective appearances.William Frederick Herschel 1738 to 1822 CE: Born in Hanover, Germany, William Herschel was an English astronomer and telescope maker who discovered the planet Uranus in 1781 and infrared (IR) solar “heat” rays in 1800. Infrared radiation is commonly employed in auto-refractors for estimating the refractive error of the eye including myopia, hyperopia, astigmatism, and higher-order aberrations.
The advantage of using infrared lies in the facility to use electronic sensor-detectable safe levels of radiation almost invisible to the human eye. Further, infrared imaging of biological organs aids in medical diagnostics (thermography), and infrared spectroscopy is used for biochemical investigations. William Herschel pioneered the study of binary stars and nebulae and established the basic form of our Milky Way Galaxy. Herschel speculated on a connection between sunspots and regional climate, using data from economist Adam Smith on the market price of wheat as a proxy. William was assisted by his sister Caroline, and his work was continued after him by his son, John F.W. Herschel.
Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier 1768 to 1830 CE: Born in Bourgogne, Fourier’s education was interrupted during the French revolution and he decided to accompany Napoleon on his Egyptian campaign. Based on his formulations of heat flow in metallic objects (1807), Fourier proposed that any mathematical function can be represented by trigonometric series.
In the 21st Century, Fourier analysis forms one of the methods for calculations on the harmonic components of time series data and also of spatial patterns and natural images by vision science researchers, though fractal methods are more popular for natural scenes. Further, Fourier synthesis helps create specific quantifiable targets for visual psychophysics and neurophysiology research. Modulation transfer in the eye (the basis for Contrast Sensitivity tests) and in most other optical systems can be quantitatively described by a double integral function of a trigonometric “Fourier” series. Fourier’s work laid the foundation for dimensional analysis, signal processing (including applications in music and speech recognition and synthesis), digital image processing, and linear programming. Fourier also studied probability and statistics, and conducted experiments on temperature of sunlight illuminated gas compartments separated by glass panes— concluding that the Earth's
atmosphere might act as an insulator of some kind, the first description of what is now known as the “greenhouse gas effect,” now widely publicized as a major
element of Climate Change.
Finally, modern predictions in computational finance (market modelling) including the prices of openly traded securities or financial derivatives and “options” conducted by quantitative number crunchers at investment banks and hedge funds, are based fundamentally on the Fourier transform and its Inverse.
Johann Wilhelm Ritter 1776 to 1810 CE: Born in Samnitz, Silesia (then in Prussia, now Poland), Ritter was the German physicist who studied medicine at Jena and discovered ultra-violet (UV) radiation. He also performed early research on electrolytic cells. Ritter noted Hershel’s discovery in 1800 of “heat-rays” and was inspired to look for “cool-rays” at the other end of the visible spectrum. Ritter noticed that silver chloride was transformed faster from white to black when it was placed at the dark violet-end of the solar spectrum. He termed these "chemical rays," later renamed ultraviolet radiation, today employed for UV-based skin tests (e.g. carotene estimation), fluorescence, etc.
Whereas several present day publications and opinion leaders avow that UV is dangerous for the skin and eye, yet in low to moderate dosages, UV is essential for Vitamin D and neurotransmitter synthesis involving eye growth in children, and regulation of circadian rhythms.
David Brewster 1781 to 1868 CE: Born in Jedburgh, Scotland, Brewster made discoveries on diffraction and polarization of light and documented in 1815 CE that the polarization of a beam of reflected light is maximized when the reflected and refracted rays are orthogonal to each other. Further, the tangent of the angle of polarization is numerically equal to the refractive index of the reflecting medium when polarization is maximized.
Brewster invented the kaleidoscope in 1816 and was knighted in 1831. His famous words from an 1830 publication (Quarterly Review) include, “Science flatters no courtier, mingles in no political strife.” Perhaps this statement may need to be reassessed in the light of ethical dilemmas posed by over-zealous science of the 21st Century. Many retinal imaging devices utilize polarization of light as a basis for their filtering and contrast-enhancement technologies. In the eye, the oriented collagen-endowed corneal stroma, and the retinal nerve-fibre layers are known to alter the polarization of incident light.
Augustin Jean Fresnel 1788 to 1827 CE: This physicist and civil engineer, born in Broglie, Normandy, and educated in Paris, refined the theory of polarized light by proving in 1821 CE that light is a transverse wave. He developed a system of large concentric rings of triangular cross-section that operated like a giant lens to produce a bright collimated beam from a lighthouse to direct ships in the night.
Fresnel prisms and Fresnel lenses are currently widely employed in optometric eye-care implements for patients with strabismus, and the concept has been used in the design of intraocular lenses surgically implanted after the removal of a cataractous biological crystalline lens from the eye. Several brands of contact lens also employ such prismatic “echelons” for selective focusing of near objects through the centre of the pupil. Laser surgical correction of presbyopia (refractive surgery to help focus near objects on the retina), rely on Fresnel echelons etched into the cornea by a femtosecond laser operating suite.
George Biddell Airy 1801 to 1892 CE: Born in Northumberland, Sir Airy studied mathematics at Cambridge where he became professor of astronomy in 1828. He installed a telescope in Greenwich, England and measured Greenwich Mean Time (made legal in 1880) by mapping the transit of stars across the meridian.
By 1847 CE, Sir Airy had devised an instrument for calculating altitude and azimuth for mapping location in the sky. Such calculations are essential for mapping space as it projects upon the centres of rotation of the eye, and for specifying location on the retina, the cornea, and in the concave bowl of a perimetry device for measuring visual field (especially
in glaucoma and neurological disorders), and for corneal topography used in contact lens fitting and refractive surgery of the cornea, or keratoplasty (e.g. LASIK, LASEK, PRK and related procedures).
The spatial intensity distribution (lateral spread) in the image of a star-like (point-like) object is known as the “Airy disc,” composed of intensity, radiance, or luminance “maxima” and “minima” forming an oscillating function—the Point Spread Function, abbreviated PSF. Airy is also attributed with being the first person to compensate for ocular astigmatism (personal communication in August, 2019 with Professor Emeritus David A. Goss, Indiana University, College of Optometry).
An interesting consequence of an experiment conducted by George Biddell Airy in 1870 is that optical aberration within an air filled telescope yielded results that are incompatible with the results of the Michelson-Morley experiment—which is regarded as the primary experimental proof for Einstein’s Special Relativity, and for the absence of an all-pervading substance of space known as “ether.”
Other Contributors
Several other European luminaries prior to the nineteenth Century contributed to the optical and physiological sciences behind current eye care diagnostics including Galileo, Gregory, Hooke, Porterfield, Young, Hering, Huygens, Purkinje, Donders, Snellen, Landolt, Helmholtz, Wundt, Badal, Tscherning, Ronchi, and Gullstrand. Biographies of these contributors can be found elsewhere and their exclusion from the present essay does not diminish the value of their investigations, scholarship, or invention.
Light and Vision: Combining Mathematics, Physics, and Biology (22).
It is noteworthy that the fields of mathematics, physical optics, and biology merge when light enters the eye and patterns in the image behind the lens become biochemical and neural processes and growth factors in and around the retina. In the cascade of the visual process, physical optics starting with the tear meniscus and cornea, transforms to biochemistry in the retinal cone and rod photoreceptors, which further translates into cell physiology and morphogenesis, as synaptic connections between retinal neurons permit localized processing of object features forming “receptive fields” of bipolar and ganglion cells. At an early level, local “retinal sensation” can be distinguished from global “visual perception.” Gradient changes in cell polarity as well as spike trains of neural impulses from the retina are communicated via the optic nerve to intermediate nuclei on their way to the occipital cortex of the brain.
Visual Context and Social Psychology (23, 24)
The visual percept is formed by a resonating cascade of information transfer up and down between the eye and the cognitive apparatus, influenced by somatic and psychological variables. It is now accepted that our interpretation of the visual scene is not exempt from social context and conditioning by ancestral and mythic archetypes as well as by immediate and long term behavioural and psycho-social proclivities. In other words, psycho-socially influenced interpretations of visual patterns may lead to either undesirable outcomes such as “aversion” that may or may not lead to aggression, or alternatively, a “pleasing aesthetic” leading to acts of cooperation, with a global potential to realize the long imagined Peace and Paradise on Earth.
Concluding Remarks
The design of diagnostic, interventional and restorative applications for visual psychophysical, biomedical, optometric, ophthalmological, and environmental scenarios that are based on the optical sciences, require significant inter-disciplinary cooperation. Such modern innovations have been made possible by documented observations and creative insights from tools makers, starting with the very first primitive crystal grinders of ancient Egypt, lens grinders of ancient Anatolia, conceptual thinkers and physicians of ancient Greece and Turkey (including especially Galen of Pergamon whose knowledge of anatomy, physiology, medicine and surgery) was developed by learning from many masters (25), onward to medical and optical science mavens of the Islamic golden age (including Avicenna and Alhazen), followed by the Renaissance and pre-modern creative artists, mathematicians, physicists, physiologists, and engineers. The names are too numerous to document in one essay without running
over a page limit arbitrarily determined by my limited store of energy and resources. My apologies are offered for omitting your favourite contributor.
To review the known biographical history of optical science of the Near East to Western geographies, prior to the Nineteenth Century, especially in relation to some of our present day eye care methods and appliances, has been my attempt in this essay. From the right-angled triangle of Pythagoras, (c. 580 to 500 BC) to the point-spread function of George Biddell Airy (1801 to 1892 CE), present day methods and technologies in fields as diverse as cartography (map making), medicine, computing, and finance, stand on the shoulders of dedicated thinkers, experimenters, teachers and scholars of optical and affiliated sciences, who devoted themselves to learning from the past and extending prior discoveries.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to all entities who have contributed to my learning, including university and government resources, mentors, instructors, administrators, colleagues, students, employers, employees, collaborators, observers, helpers, friends, and family. Illustrations and photographs are borrowed without permission from online world-wide web resources, originally accessed in 2013 and now unknown to me, making it difficult to credit specific sources. I would gladly acknowledge their originators and publishers once identified.
Key References
1. Hutchinson Dictionary of Scientists, 1996: Helicon Publishing Ltd., Oxford, UK; Editors S Jenkins-Jones, S Karmali, T Ballsdon, I von Essen, C Thompson, K Young, A Farkas, J Webb, A Dixon and T Caven.
2. The Physics Book: From the Big Bang to Quantum Resurrection, 250 Milestones in the History of Physics, 2011; Sterling Publishing Company, Inc., New York; Clifford A. Pickover
318708288_The_history_of_optics_From_ancient_times_to_the_middle_ages; Kasper M. Paasch
7. Implicit model of other people’s visual attention as an invisible, force-carrying beam projecting from the eyes. Arvid Guterstam, Hope H. Kean, Taylor W. Webb, Faith S. Kean, and Michael S. A. Graziano; https://www.pnas.org/content/116/1/328
10.Smith, A. Mark. What is the History of Medieval Optics Really About? Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 148, No. 2, June 2004. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/7bbc/10e01648e01345322f2acb87a5461231c7c4.pdf
11.Ian Howard (1996) Alhazen's neglected discoveries of visual phenomena. Perception 25(10) 1203-17.
12.https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1068/p251133 Alan Gilchrist 1996 Perception, volume 25, pages 1133-1136; The deeper lesson of Alhazen.
13.http://article.sapub.org/10.5923.j.optics.20140404.02.html ; International Journal of Optics and Applications, 2014; 4(4): 110-113; Alhazen, the Founder of Physiological Optics and Spectacles.
14.Fryczkowski AW, Bieganowski L, and Nye CN. Witelo--Polish vision scientist of the middle ages: father of physiological optics. Surv. Ophthalmol. 1996 Nov-Dec;41(3):255-60.
15.https://static1.squarespace.com/static/57bf33a137c58162d95139aa/t/ 5827008c20099e6175572b9c/1478951057856/nature.pdf IN RETROSPECT Book of Optics Jim Al-Khalili revisits Ibn al-Haytham’s hugely influential study on its millennium.
17.https://jnnp.bmj.com/content/68/1/35 ; HAAS LF Nicholas of Cusa (1401-64); Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry 2000;68:35.
18.Jerry Brotton (2012) A History of the World in Twelve Maps. Page 7, Penguin Books, New York.
19.Fritjof Capra (2007) The Science of Leonardo. Inside the mind of the great genius of the Renaissance: Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group, Random House Inc., New York.
21.Bernard Cohen (1996) Benjamin Franklin’s Science: Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
22.Adler’s Physiology of the Eye 8th and 11th Edition, 1985, 2011: Saunders, Elsevier, Inc., New York.
23. Qi S, Footer O, Camere CF, and Mobbs D (2018) A Collaborator's Reputation Can Bias Decisions and Anxiety under Uncertainty. J Neurosci. 2018 Feb 28;38(9):2262-2269.
24. Bufalari I, Lenggenhager B, Porciello G, Serra Holmes B, and Aglioti SM (2014) Enfacing others but only if they are nice to you. Front Behav Neurosci. 2014 Mar 28;8:102.
25. Bieganowski L . Galen from Pergamon (130-200)--views in ophthalmology. Part II--anatomic description of the eye. Klin Oczna. 2005; 107(1-3): 173-6. [Article in Polish]
