T3D Re: From Euclid to Wheatstone

["William J. Carter, Ph.D." <wc@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 01:23 PM 9/27/98 -0600, Abram Klooswyk wrote:
>I would especially recommend to all interested in the subject (if there 
>is anyone left in the audience :-)) to read:
>Nicolas J. Wade: "On the late invention of the stereoscope", Perception
>1987, vol 16 pages 785-818. 
>Wade says in his abstract: "It was not until 1838, when Wheatstone 
>published his account of the stereoscope, that stereoscopic depth 
>perception entered into the body of binocular phenomena." 
<snip>
>So it seems that, although more has become known about Alhazen, Howard
>and Wade still think that the first to give an adequately description of
>binocular depth perception was Wheatstone.
<snip>
>The phase in science between the understanding of all kinds of binocular
>phenomena and understanding of stereoscopy took over 2000 years. 
>There must have been some unsurmountable threshold, related to the phase 
>of development of the culture in general.
>I have said elsewhere that stereoscopy could not have been invented
>before the world discovered man as an individual.
>So not before Rousseau wrote "Emile" (1762), or before human rights
>were declared by the American Congress (1776) and the French Assemble
>Nationale (1789), not before Lavoisier, Galvani and Mueller started
>modern physiology, or before the invention of the stethoscope (1816).

That's pretty funny :-)

An interesting discription of cultural arrogance against non-Western science
is given at:
http://www.pion.co.uk/perception/perc1096/editorial.html
Including a broad description of AlHazen's work, it ends with an important
warning; "Perhaps no single factor explains the neglect of writers such as
Alhazen and Wallach. Language differences, ahistoricism, aculturalism, and
racism have all played a role. Science must be defended against these
antiscientific trends. Now more than ever we should protect and promote the
international flavor of science. Domination of science by any one country is
bad for science. Surely the time has come to celebrate diversity in the
scientific as well as the cultural realm."

In my paper, "A Brief History of Single Lens Stereo", I wrote:
"The first application of a single lens stereo system has been tried as
early as 1677, by a French philosopher - le Pere Cherubin, of Orleans - a
Capuchin friar. And this, fewer than twelve years after the first book on
microscopy, Robert Hooke's Micrographia (1665). The following is an extract
from the description given by Cherubin of his instrument: 

          'Some years ago I resolved to effect what I had long before
premeditated, to
          make a microscope to see the smallest objects with the two eyes
conjointly: and
          this project has succeeded even beyond my expectation; with the
advantages
          above the single instrument so extraordinary and so surprising,
that every
          intelligent person to whom I have shown the effect has assured me
that inquiring
          philosophers will be highly pleased with the communication.' "

A copy of an early engraving of this instrument can be seen at:
http://www.creative.net/~wc/history.htm
BTW, cave paintings were made around natural bulges and depressions along
cave walls, and were an early form of bas relief, and it's associated
3-dimensional awareness. 


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