Echoes of the past: Predicting the future of ophthalmic optics

The rate at which technology advances today can sometimes be taken for granted, but this wasn’t case in the 1960s. In a paper presented at a meeting in 1964, Harry Freeman acknowledged that technology was moving at an ‘explosive’ rate and attempted to predict what ophthalmic optics would be like in the year 2000.

Freeman outlined four areas which he would study – diagnosis, instrumentation, bio-chemistry and appliances. Under the first topic of diagnosis Freeman described the computer as a mathematical oddity which could only add up to two. However, the computer’s ability to retain information and instruction, along with the speed at which it operated were predicted to be of significant benefit in practice particularly when comparing a number of symptoms at once.