Edwin Land
Edwin Land
Edwin Herbert Land, ForMemRS, FRPS, Hon.MRIwas an American scientist and inventor, best known as the co-founder of the Polaroid Corporation. Among other things, he invented inexpensive filters for polarizing light, a practical system of in-camera instant photography, and his retinex theory of color vision. His Polaroid instant camera, which went on sale in late 1948, made it possible for a picture to be taken and developed in 60 seconds or less...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth7 May 1909
CityBridgeport, CT
CountryUnited States of America
Fifty years after we undertook to make the first synthetic polarizers we find them the essential layer in digital liquid-crystal. And thirty four years after we undertook to make the first instant camera and film, our kind of photography has become ubiquitous.
It is a curious property of research activity that after the problem has been solved the solution seems obvious. This is true not only for those who have not previously been acquainted with the problem, but also for those who have worked over it for years.
We live in a world changing so rapidly that what we mean frequently by common sense is doing the thing that would have been right last year.
The very essence of democracy is the absolute faith that while people must cooperate, the first function of democracy, its peculiar gift, is to develop each individual into everything that he might be.
You always start with a fantasy. Part of the fantasy technique is to visualize something as perfect. Then with the experiments you work back from the fantasy to reality, hacking away at the components.
Our society is changing so rapidly that none of us can know what it is or where it is going.
Why do I want to believe what I believe?... Science, to put it somewhat vulgarly, is a technique to keep yourself from kidding yourself.
If this is preparation for life, where in the world, where in the relationship with our colleagues, where in the industrial domain, where ever again, anywhere in life, is a person given this curious sequence of prepared talks and prepared questions, questions to which the answers are known?
The bottom line is in heaven!
Intense concentration for hour after hour can bring out resources in people that they didn't know they had.
A mistake is an event, the full benefit of which has not yet been turned to your advantage.
Work only on problems that are manifestly important and seem to be nearly impossible to solve. That way you will have a natural market for your product and no competition.
If you are able to state a problem - any problem - and if it is important enough, then the problem can be solved,
Look, if the picture you get instantly is as beautiful as the picture you get by waiting seven days, then it is absolute madness to say that there is virtue in waiting.