Light and Sight since Antiquity

Abstract

Light and sight were not distinguished from one another until the dioptrics and the anatomy of the eye had been adequately described in the seventeenth century. A survey of early theories of light is presented, together with descriptions of developing knowledge of ocular anatomy. Once the analogy between the eye and a camera had been made, the problem of accommodation was exposed, and corrections for errors of refraction could be given theoretical support. Theories of accommodation in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are briefly reviewed, as is the early history of eye glasses.

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