The Optical System of the Human Eye (Science on Stage, London, June 17th-20th, 2015)

The eye is perhaps the most important sensory organ with which man communicates with the external environment. For this purpose, it has developed a remarkable visual system on accuracy so that both the distant and the nearby objects can clearly be formed on the retina so that the brain has a "clear picture" of the environment. Several structures have been proposed so far in order to show the optical system of the eye. These usually include a converging lens to show the function of  an emmetropic eye and  a second converging or diverging lens to show the function of an hypermetropic or a myopic eye. The proposed construction presents a cross-section of the eye, axial length 24cm corresponding to a 10-fold scale of its actual size. For the simulation of the optical components of the eye, appropriate refractive index hydrogels are used. The construction is not static, but dynamic allowing the supervisory functions of the major optical presentation of the eye, such as the adaptation of the crystalline lens for sharp focus onto the retina, for both distant and near objects. The construction also presents the main supervisory eye refractive anomalies, CT-refractive myopia, and a CT-refractive hypermetropia.

Antonis Margaritis (Chemistry teacher) & George Marakis (Physics teacher)

Experimental General Lyceum of Heraklion