A Look At The Early History Of Glasses
As with many of humanity's greatest discoveries, the original understanding and insight behind the development of the lens was born out of a desire for something else. Ever since the dawn of humankind, man has struggled to find and maintain a source of heat. Fire was the answer, but producing flames was no small feat for our ancient ancestors. The Stone Age method of utilising flints or rubbing sticks was effective, but time consuming and unreliable. Climatic conditions could adversely effect the ability to produce fire. Damp would render fuels non-flammable and no matter how persistently flints were struck, fire would not be forthcoming. It was this dilemma that gave rise to the invention of “fire stonesâ€. Fire stones were oval shaped pieces of glass used to concentrate the suns rays in order to produce sufficient heat to bring forth flames. The earliest known example of such a device is the Assyrian Nimrud Lens, which is thought to be roughly 3,000 years old.
Over the next 1,000 years, the use of fire stones spread from the Middle East into India, China and Europe. The science behind the lens developed and more and more powerful fire stones were manufactured. Many scholars believe that the use of the fire stone gave rise to a second, tangential discovery – the magnifying glass. Continual use of fire stone lenses taught our ancient forebears that oval shaped pieces of glass could affect vision. Objects would appear larger and more detailed when observed through a fire stone. Soon, these pieces of glass were being utilised by artisans and craftsmen to assist them in the creation of fine art and detailed objects. Sculptors, painters, anatomists, botanists, jewellers and metalworkers all made good use of magnifying glasses in order to achieve precision work.
It wasn't long before the great minds of antiquity began to realise that the magnifying lens could be used to assist those men and women afflicted with short sight. For example, Pliny the Elder, one of western civilisation's earliest and most esteemed historians recorded that Nero, the Roman Emperor, used a specially cut emerald in order to watch gladiator games. The lens was developing quickly in Europe and the use of lenses to correct vision was coming on leaps and bounds. Then came the collapse of the Roman Empire and with it, European civilisation entered the Dark Ages, a period synonymous with a deceleration of scientific discovery.
Europe would need to wait another 800 years before its scholars and early scientists could resume the challenge of developing corrective lenses. History records that the earliest known spectacles were produced in Italy in roughly the late thirteenth Century. Before this, “Reading Stones†had been popular in Europe since the eleventh century. However, it was not until the late fifteenth century that the use of lenses to correct myopia was put on a truly scientific footing. Nicholas De Cusa is generally held to be the first person to have promoted the use of concave lenses to correct shortsightedness. This was a critical discovery for the development of the modern science of ophthalmology. It also represented a starting point for the evolution of professional opticians.
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