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Robert Krampf's Experiment of the Week |
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This Week's Experiment - #185 Paper Glasses |
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This week's experiment is something that I ran into MANY years ago when I |
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first began wearing glasses. If you wear glasses, then you know how |
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challenging it can be to find your glasses if you have laid them down and |
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can't remember where you put them. You need your glasses to find your |
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glasses. This is a way that you can make a quick, emergency pair of glasses |
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for yourself or someone else that needs them. You will need: |
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someone that needs glasses |
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a piece of stiff paper |
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a needle, pin, or sharp nail |
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If you wear glasses, take them off. Look around you. Things probably look |
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very blurry. If you don't wear glasses, get a friend that does wear them to |
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try and read something without their glasses. Note how close or how far away |
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they can read something. |
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Now we are going to make some paper glasses. Put your glasses back on if you |
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need them to see up close. Use the pin to make a small, round hole in the |
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piece of paper. Hold the paper up to your eye and look through the hole. If |
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you normally wear glasses, you may be in for a surprise. Things look almost |
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as clear as they do with your glasses. They will look dimmer, but very sharp |
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and clear. |
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What is happening? In a past experiment, we used a pinhole as a lens to |
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focus an image onto some waxed paper with our camera obscura. Here we are |
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doing the same thing, but instead of focusing the image onto paper, we are |
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focusing it onto your eye. |
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To understand how the pinhole works, you will need to make another pinhole, |
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very close to the original. Now as you look through, you will see a double |
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image of everything. Add 5 more pinholes and the image begins to blur as you |
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get more and more images overlapping. If you add enough pinholes, things |
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will look the same as they do without the pinholes. Think of looking at |
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things without your glasses as looking through a tremendous number of |
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pinholes all side by side. Using a single pinhole only lets a single image |
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through, so it is dim, but in focus. |
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In an emergency, you can even do without the paper. Put the first finger and |
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thumb of your right hand together, as if you were pinching something. Do the |
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same with your left hand and then bring your hands together to form a small |
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opening between your fingers and thumbs. Look through this tiny hole and it |
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will work just as your pinhole did. I have even seen adds in novelty |
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catalogs for emergency glasses which were actually just cardboard glasses with |
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cardboard lenses. Each lens had several pinholes in it. A neat idea, but |
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not at $19.95. |
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Get volume 1 of the Experiment of the Week postings in book form! To order, |
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send $9.95, plus $3.00 postage and handling to: |
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Robert Krampf |
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PO Box 60982 |
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Jacksonville, FL 32236-0982 |
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Include your e-mail address and I will notify you when I get your order. |
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If you would like to be on the list, just send me an e-mail at [email protected], asking to be added to the Experiment of the Week List. |
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Check out our web site at: |
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http://www.krampf.com |
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From Robert Krampf's Science Education Company |
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4850 A1A South |
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St. Augustine, FL 32084 |
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(904) 471-4578 |
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