Extended reading, read the magazine article about how eyeglasses were invented. how the world got eyeglasses. What are the greatest breakthrough s humans have made since the invention of the wheel? When a magazine post this question to a panel of experts, including scientists, entrepreneurs, engineers and historians, eyeglasses came in behind the only modern electronics, penny ceiling electricity and the printing press. If you disagree with this ranking, try this quick experiment, rub some soap on a piece of glass and hold IT in front of your eyes. Or if you wear glasses or contact lentils, remove them and try to keep reading. Oh, wait, you can't because you can't see clearly enough. As anyone who needs corrective lenses will tell you, being able to see clearly is hugely important, whether you're trying to put together a set of building blocks or read your favorite book. Considering that many people in the world suffer from poor vision, you may think that the great minds of history would have quickly come together to tackle the problem. However, this isn't at all what happened long before anything like spectacular existed. People had noticed that a piece of curved glass could magnify an image. About two thousand years ago, people began making magnifying glasses this way. These were probably the first simple corrective lenses no one knows who came up with. The technology of shaping glass to bring images into Better focus or mounting lens is in frames that could go in front of your face. Most likely, many anonymous classes makers tried to improve the technology by trial and era. Although we don't know exactly whom to thank, IT is pretty much agreed that corrective lenders first appeared in italy in the twelve eighties. Once the technology was available, spectacles caught on quickly, just like so many popular accessories today, spectacle soon became fashionable. People thought glasses made them look more intelligent or sophisticated. They were given away as gifts. And what popular among people who didn't even need them. In the fifteen century, the printing press was invented, making books plentiful and relatively inexpensive. This drove the demand for reading glasses. There was, however, a practical problem to overcome. While the quality of the lens is was improving rapidly, getting them to stay comfortably on the face was a great chAllenge. Indeed, reading while eating often meant spectacles in the soup. People may many attempts to overcome this problem, some stranger than others, spectacles were held on the face by tying threads to the frames and looping them. Over the years, weight were sometimes tied to the ends of the threads to counterbaLance the weight of the glasses to keep them from slipping off. Some people use threads or wires to hook their glasses to their hats so that they danelle just in front of the eyes. Others attached them to straps tied around the forehead or thread them into their hair. Still, other design simply perched uneasily on the bridge of the nose. Later models worked a bit Better by having the frame slightly pinch the nose. These stayed on the face longer, but they must have been quite uncomfortable. It's hard to imagine why IT took so long to design spectacular with ARM pieces that could clip behind the ears. But these weren't invented until the eighteen century. Even then, the side stamps were short and designed to clamp tightly against the temples. ouch. Like inventing the lenders themselves, coming up with designs that were easy to use was mostly a matter of trial and era. These days, technology has made spectacles comfortable. Unfortunately, now that we've tackled the technological problem of helping people see clearly, we face an ethical dilma post by the development of smart glasses, which are wearing able computers, in essence, looking like a pair of ordinary glasses. Smart glasses make IT possible for the wear to use the web and make videos of everything they. However, opponents of smart glasses believe that a device that allows its wa to record people without their knowledge almost anywhere and anytime is disturbing. Even though we have become used to the marvels of modern technology, we still need to pause and think about the potential negative impact of this new invention. We'll have to wait and see if smart glasses would follow the same path as regular glasses, or in other words, if their usefulness would outweigh potential problems. Meanwhile, those of us who need corrective lenses to read about the controversy should be grateful to that anonymity talian glasser, who first invented ordinary old spectacles.