Victoria Fisher of U of T holds the century old ‘smart lens’ – Photo by Dan Falk
Toronto. We are familiar nowadays with smartphones, but what about a smart lens? Just over a century ago (1922), the lens shown here went to Australia to aid in proving a theory published in 1916. Another example of the valuable use of photography to the world.
Over a century ago in 1905 (special) and 1915 (general) a young Albert Einstein came up with his “Theory of Relativity“. Even today, it isn’t uncommon for a theory to precede proof by many years.
Young Einstein’s work was based on that of many of his predecessors, including A A Michelson (this biography I read back in the summer of 1962).
The U of T magazine for October, 11, 2023 includes an article by Victoria Fisher, the assistant curator of U of T’s Scientific Instruments Collection and Dan Falk, called “The Einstein Camera”. In this photo by Falk, Fisher, “holds up the lens that travelled to Australia and back more than a century ago. In May 2023, Fisher uncovered the lens in the David A. Dunlap Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics’ historic collections, where it had lain forgotten for decades.”
My thanks to good friend and fellow photo historian, George Dunbar, for finding and sharing this article with us (I still have the book on Michelson).
