History of Bifocal Glasses

Bifocal glasses have been around for ages. Benjamin Franklin, who is credited with the invention of bifocal glasses wore them himself. If you are unaware of what bifocal means, let me explain. Bifocals are eyeglasses that have two different lenses in them, one for distance, and one for near vision. The way this works is on the top of a glasses lens, there is the lens for distance, then as you get to the bottom the lens for near vision appears.

Modern Day Bifocals

Within the history of bifocal glasses, there has been many different innovations as time and technology grew. Irving Rips who worked for Younger Optics created the invisible bifocal glasses in 1955. This was a big change, since originally the lens looked rather odd, since the shape dipped in. 

Original Bifocals

With any new idea, there are obviously problems. Bifocals can cause dizziness and headaches due to the fact that they have a total 2 different prescriptions on one lens. The headache and dizziness does indeed go away after you do get used to the different glasses. 

Bifocals are an extremely helpful invention to all glasses wearers. It helps anyone who has trouble reading, and has trouble seeing faraway. I wonder what the next big glasses innovation will be.