Who inventor edwin land10/11/2023 ![]() A "chemical darkroom" provided by pH-sensitive opacifying dyes replaced the mechanical darkroom embodied in the earlier one-step cameras. In 1972 Land described his system of "absolute one-step photography" in which full-color images develop outside the camera, a system embodied in the Polaroid SX-70 camera and film. The entire photographic industry found the pod to be a uniquely valuable instrument, which remains fundamental to all instant films.įull-color instant prints were introduced by Polaroid in 1963. Patent Number 2,543,181, issued February 27, 1951, the patent cited when Land was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1977. His concept of developing the film immediately after exposure in a hand-held camera, employing only a single "dry" step, was made practical by making the processing reagent viscous and enclosing the viscous reagent in a single-use, rupturable container called a "pod." That invention was protected by U.S. In that talk he outlined the theoretical considerations involved in designing one-step systems and broadly described the entire field of instant "one-step" photography. Land is perhaps most widely known for the Land instant photographic process, invented in the mid-1940s, stimulated by his three-year old daughter's question, "Why can't I see the picture now?" This photographic process was first publicly demonstrated on February 21, 1947, at a meeting of the Optical Society of America. ![]() Land actively participated in the preparation of his patent applications and often suggested unconventional ways to define his inventions. patents during his life, a total exceeded by only a few others. He filed his first patent application in 1929 and received 537 U.S. "Din" Land is a unique example of the success of the American Patent System in carrying out its constitutional charter "to promote the Progress of Science and Useful Arts." The limited exclusive rights given for Land's inventions permitted him to organize Polaroid Corporation to exploit his light polarizer, and permitted Polaroid to grow and to support the research and development necessary to bring succeeding inventions to the marketplace. A number of inventions contributed to the war effort, including infrared light polarizers dark adaptation goggles variable density goggles polarizing ring sights, which had no optics and no restriction on aperture or exit pupil and Vectograph three-dimensional light-polarizing images uniquely suited for aerial reconnaissance. His dream of an automobile headlight system using polarizers to prevent blinding glare from on-coming vehicles while increasing visibility for the driver never became a reality, although all the scientific and technological problems involved were fully solved.ĭuring World War II, Land turned Polaroid to military research and production. The light polarizers Land invented made it economically possible to make use of the phenomenon of light polarization in products as diverse as camera filters, scientific instruments, train and airplane windows, three-dimensional movies, and polarizing sunglasses. H-sheet is still the most widely- used light polarizer. ![]() Although he never graduated, Land returned to Harvard on many occasions as a lecturer, and to receive an honorary doctor of science degree in 1957.ĭuring World War II Land invented the "H-sheet" light polarizer made by staining oriented polyvinyl alcohol with iodine. In 1932 at a Harvard physics colloquium he announced a "new polarizer for light in the form of an extensive synthetic sheet," a polarizer known as "J-sheet." He later took another leave of absence to devote himself entirely to research in polarized light. Land conceived the idea of making in sheet form the optical equivalent of a large, single crystal by suspending submicroscopic polarizing particles in plastic or glass and orienting these polarizing particles in a transparent sheet.įollowing a leave of absence to pursue his ideas, he returned to Harvard bringing with him his new light polarizer. ![]() While still a freshman at Harvard, Land was intrigued with the natural phenomena of polarized light and was challenged simultaneously by the difficulty of using it in science and the impossibility of using it in applied science for industry because the then-available light polarizers were Nicol prisms, large single crystals, heavy, expensive, and necessarily limited in size. He was educated at the Norwich Academy and Harvard University. EDWIN HERBERT LAND-inventor, scientist, entrepreneur, teacher, visionary, and public servant-was born in Bridge-port, Connecticut, on May 7, 1909, and died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on March 1, 1991, at the age of eighty-one.
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