Recently I was picking up a pair of glasses. While I waited another customer—a Russian émigré—remarked that she was having a hard time choosing a frame. Back in the Soviet Union, she said, there would be a choice of perhaps five frames. Alex, the shop owner—also a Russian émigré—added that in optical shops in the former Soviet Union customers would not usually receive their exact prescription. A nearsighted customer with a prescription of -3.25 would be given a lens that was the closest available, perhaps -3.75. Not only that, Alex explained, the optical shop would make no attempt to fit the pupil to the lens—it was literally one size fits all. (If you wear glasses, you know that an optician takes measurements so that the sweet spot on the lens matches where your eye focuses.)
The Infinite Well of Progress
The Infinite Well of Progress
The Infinite Well of Progress
Recently I was picking up a pair of glasses. While I waited another customer—a Russian émigré—remarked that she was having a hard time choosing a frame. Back in the Soviet Union, she said, there would be a choice of perhaps five frames. Alex, the shop owner—also a Russian émigré—added that in optical shops in the former Soviet Union customers would not usually receive their exact prescription. A nearsighted customer with a prescription of -3.25 would be given a lens that was the closest available, perhaps -3.75. Not only that, Alex explained, the optical shop would make no attempt to fit the pupil to the lens—it was literally one size fits all. (If you wear glasses, you know that an optician takes measurements so that the sweet spot on the lens matches where your eye focuses.)