The Humble Lens

This entry falls into the category of "Things We Take for Granted." Lenses. I was just reading the wikipedia entry on the subject, and was amazed to discover how far back the technology dates. The oldest lens artifact dates back three thousand years, to the Assyrians, and was likely used for simple magnification and light concentration for fire starting. Historically, lenses in varying degrees of complexity are found in nearly all of the world's cultures. The first use of lenses for vision correction is found in Ancient Rome, while the first mathematical proof for lens magnification came a thousand years ago from an Arabic physicist.

Today lenses are ubiquitous; found not only in the places you'd expect, like glasses, cameras, telescopes, and binoculars. They're also used heavily in communications, focusing light for fiber optics. Same for the medical industry, where fiber optics are used in endoscopic camera systems, allowing for non-invasive surgical procedures.

Not only do lenses allow billions of people to see clearly, they've extended mankinds view of the cosmos, bringing us nearly to the edge of the universe, and billions of years into the cosmic past. They've allowed us to find earth-like planets circling suns thousands of light years away, and may be hastening the day when contact, or at least evidence for other advanced civilizations is found.

The lens has been pivitol in the development of civilization, so I'd like to formally declare February 15th "National Ground Glass Optical Systems Day". It just rolls off the tongue.