Glasses

Years ago, my husband had a friend with a watermelon problem. The guy was red green colorblind and could not tell when he was eating into the green part of the melon before the rind. My husband would alert him when it was time to stop eating.

How sad it would be not to see every color of the spectrum at full hue and intensity. From as far back as I can remember, I have been in love with color. Every color in the rainbow is a source of daily joy, and I can’t imagine living in a personal world lacking such constant beauty.

However, color blindness, or color visual deficiency, is a common affliction, affecting about 1 in 12 men worldwide and 1 in 200 women. Several different variations of color blindness exist with the red green type being the most common.

Last Saturday, I chanced on a program on NPR and heard some amazing news. An “accidental invention” has led to the production of glasses that enable people with red green color blindness to see vivid colors for the first time.

The breakthrough came on a frisbee field. Don McPherson, the inventor of tinted glasses that protect surgeons’ eyes from laser lights, was wearing his invention while playing in an extreme frisbee game. His friend asked if he could try on the sharp looking glasses. When he put the glasses on, he saw bright colors for the first time in his life.

Here is a YouTube on how this chance discovery turned into Chroma Glasses which have given rainbows back to over 30,000 people. Bravo to science, scientists and serendipity.

 

 

0

2 thoughts on “Glasses”

  1. and then there was the day my younger son kurt learned of his situation–and all the way home in the car he stuck his head out the window and shouted gleefuly, “I’m colorblind! I’m colorblind!” Because he knew he saw the world differently from most of us . . .

    Reply

Leave a Comment