• Question: how do glasses work? how do they make you see?

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      Asked by Pineapple to Stuart, Richard, Lauren, katy, Anais on 9 Mar 2016.
      • Photo: Lauren Laing

        Lauren Laing answered on 9 Mar 2016:

        Hi! Good question.

        I believe there are two main types of glasses which come in different strengths. The plus lens is a convex shape, this is for far-sightedness and the lens focuses images on the retina when the eye’s lens originally focuses the image too far back. For near-sightedness, the minus lens has a concave shape, which focuses images on the retina when the eye’s lens originally focuses the image too close.

      • Photo: Richard Friend

        Richard Friend answered on 9 Mar 2016:

        Some people (like me) have eyeballs which aren’t quite the right shape, or the lenses in the eyes are either too fat or too thin, or the muscles which pull the lens into shape don’t work quite well enough. The lens in the eye bends light coming into your eye onto a specific spot at the back of your eye, and if you’ve got one of the problems above then that won’t happen as well as it should, so things will seem blurry. Having an extra set of lenses in front of your eyes (glasses) helps by bending the light before it gets to your eyes so you’ve got two sets of lenses working together to get the light to hit the right spot in your eye.

      • Photo: Stuart Atkinson

        Stuart Atkinson answered on 9 Mar 2016:

        Hi. I can’t add much more to Lauren and Richard’s answers. In general, people who have corrective lenses (glasses) are either short sighted or long sighted. Short sightedness, also called myopia, is where you can focus on close up things but not far off. Long sightedness is where you focus on distant things but not close up.

        When you see a blurred image without glasses its because the image is being focussed either in front of or behind your retina. Glasses bend the light to make it focus at the right distance inside your eye.

      • Photo: Anais Kahve

        Anais Kahve answered on 10 Mar 2016:

        Hello, I think the other scientist have done well to answer your question. I have nothing to add.

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