1/28/2004   slide 5
History
•Not at all obvious how vision works
–New type of retinal cell just discovered 3 years ago! Research at Brown (BDH article)
•Plato, Aristotle (and others) eyes send out light to “see” objects
•Epicurus: “ ‘thin, hollow films’ of atoms—eidola—which retain the shape of the object shedding them, continuously form around macro-objects, travel swiftly through the air, and enter the eye, stimulating visual sensations.” http://bulldog2.redlands.edu/fac/jeremy_anderson/research/Epicurus.pdf
•Kepler, 1604: Eye is a lens that focuses light on the retina
•But how do we make meaning out of light patterns?
•
M.C. Escher, Eye
First of all, even now, it is not at all obvious how vision works. Much to still be discovered.

SOURCES
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http://fnordfiles.rtfm.com.au/graphics/Art/Escher/escher.htm
http://bulldog2.redlands.edu/fac/jeremy_anderson/research/Epicurus.pdf
Epicurus (1964). Letter to Herodotus, in Epicurus: Letters, Principal Doctrines, and Vatican
Sayings, Russel M. Geer, trans., New York: Macmillan.
Or
Epicurus (1926). Epistula ad Herodotum, in Epicurus: the Extant Remains, Cyril Bailey, trans.,
Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Lucretius (1975). De Rerum Natura, W. H. D. Rouse,
Cambridge: Harvard University Press.