Posted on 09/17/2009 2:39:10 PM PDT by Daffynition
LONDON, England (CNN) -- In the developing world millions of people struggle to operate machinery, read from a blackboard, or just see the world around them, because they don't have access to the eye glasses they need. Self-refraction glasses let the wearer adjust the lenses to suit their vision, without the need for an optometrist.
But a pair of glasses developed by Joshua Silver, a physics professor at the University of Oxford, offers an affordable solution.
The glasses can be adjusted to the right strength by the wearer, without the need for them to visit an optometrist.
A major reason for that is a chronic shortage of optometrists -- in Ghana, for example, there is just one for every eight million people. That makes it incredibly difficult for ordinary people to visit an optometrist, without which it's impossible for them to get glasses.
But Silver thinks he may have come up with a solution to the problem. His self-refraction glasses mean people can correct their vision without needing an optometrist (see Fact Box).
"Take a Sub-Saharan country where there is one optometrist for every million people; those people will never see an optometrist, so how will they get eyewear?," he told CNN.
"Any model of delivery of vision correction in the developing world that depends on eye care professionals won't work. If you find a model that doesn't rely on them then you potentially have a solution."
Silver has been developing the glasses for over 20 years and continues to research the technology at the Center for Vision in the Developing World (CVDW) at the University of Oxford.
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(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
They consist of clear membranes filled with silicon oil, protected by plastic discs. The wearer can adjust the amount of oil in the lenses using a dial fitted to a syringe on the arms of the glasses.
Changing the amount of oil in the lenses changes their curvature, which alters their strength. When someone has adjusted the lenses to suit their vision, the lenses are sealed with a valve and the syringes removed, giving near-instant glasses with no need for an optometrist.
Beer goggles?
Neat!
Beer goggles?
No, those'll be the follow-on yellow-tinted BlueBlocker glasses.
One of those inventions you ask why someone didn’t think of that a long time ago.
It would be wonderful if they could get them made cheaply enough to help people.
I’d like to be on the ground floor of that franchise.
Oh God!
Oil-lens binoculars. Though it strikes me that binoculars like that would be at serious disadvantage simply because of temperature differences, since oil viscosity is affected by temperature.
With what 0 is trying to do to our health industry, a lot of things are going to have to become ‘self-help.’ Could prove to be a boon to entrepreneurs, and a whole new ‘do-it-yourself’ health industry.
This invention will work beautifully...until Government decides to get involved!
Well done.
They did. Frank Herbert thought of the concept thirty-some odd years ago, in "Dune."
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