Our colleague Sergio Barbero together with María del Mar González from the Autonomous University of Madrid and member of the ICMAT and Ágata Timón G-Longoria of the ICMAT and editor and coordinator of the section "Coffee and theorems" have published yesterday in that same section of the newspaper El País an article titled "The ophthalmologist who used mathematics to understand astigmatism."

In this article they tell the interesting story of Allvar Gullstrand, a doctor who wanted to have studied engineering and who ended up winning a Nobel Prize in 1911 for his studies that were halfway between optometry (study of the defects of the eye and their correction) and the math.

The article explains the origins of geometric optics, the branch of science that Allvar Gullstrand studied, and what we know today that happens to our eyes when we have myopia, hyperopia or astigmatism.

The article has been published in the section Café y teoremas of the newspaper El País.

Read the article