Earlier Eyeglasses

Advanced glassmaking and metallurgy needed for potential frames were available in antiquity. Optics have been studied in one form or another since at least 700 BC using quartz, water, and glass. So if someone put the two together and managed to create eyeglasses in the ancient world, whether in ancient Greece, Rome, Han China, or India (or elsewhere), what would be the result?
 
Advanced glassmaking and metallurgy needed for potential frames were available in antiquity. Optics have been studied in one form or another since at least 700 BC using quartz, water, and glass. So if someone put the two together and managed to create eyeglasses in the ancient world, whether in ancient Greece, Rome, Han China, or India (or elsewhere), what would be the result?
Clear glass is amazingly late. For quite a while Venice had a monopoly.

Now, its true that by 1600, say the glassmakers of German were producing glass that was almost clear, only a pale green tinge, but very much before that the glass is still perceptibly coloured.

Thus, you dont get telescopes until about 1600.

Eye glasses are a bit easier, and, in fact, there is a painting showing a guy wearing recognizable eyeglasses dating from 1351. (Hughspec.jpg on wikicommons, i think it was)

But you might have to push glass tech back earlier to get much ealier eyeglasses.

Yes the romans and egyptans and chinese had glass, but it was all coloured, as far as i know.
 
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Egypt reported a sort of magnification lens by the 5th century BC and the Romans likely had similar devices. Arab scholars were working with them by 1050 (name eludes me), so I think it might be possible to build some in the mid-late Roman Republic or early Empire. So what would be the results?
 

Delta Force

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You don't actually need optics to make glasses. If you have glasses and take them off to look through a small opening such as a pinhole your vision becomes clearer. Someone could make glasses out of a flexible material with a pinhole in it.
 
Mass production is going to be a problem. The Romans could make some remarkably clear glass, but as with most of Roman technology, they were substituting experience, very specific materials, and ridiculous amounts of skill for any real understanding of what they were doing. Also, while magnification as a phenomenon was understood, the underlying principles were not (as in: at all). There is a goodf chance the effect will be ascribed to the properties of the material rather than its shape. So making a pair of glasses, while possible, is most likely to remain a singular event.

You can, of course, use coloured glass to make lenses, too. It's not as useful, but with enough light, it's OK.
 
But then if someone notes the potential for demand in such a case I think interest, and then experimentation, could be generated. Mass production could still be a problem, but if they can learn more about optics and refraction I think they could still have some impressive results.
 
But then if someone notes the potential for demand in such a case I think interest, and then experimentation, could be generated. Mass production could still be a problem, but if they can learn more about optics and refraction I think they could still have some impressive results.

Mass production is pretty late iotl, most lenses were hand ground for a long time.

For simple magnifying lenses, spherical surfaces are 'obvious' and 'easy' to grind. If you want fancy optics, you need Snell's law, but the simplest lenses would still be useful.
 
I did not mean production on an industrial scale but production in sufficient quantity to allow for somewhat widepread availability. Say, being able to get a pair in most major cities when necessary.
 
I suspect China could do something involving mass production. I saw on the history channel engineering and empire they were mass producing swords and armor. If that's an accurate idea of their society.
 
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