Otto Wichterle: Inventor of Contact Lenses Honoured by Google Doodle on his 108th Birthday

Google on Wednesday, 27 October paid its tribute to the inventor of soft modern contact lenses, Otto Wichterle through the logo on Google's homepage called Google Doodle.

The doodle shows Otto Wichterle holding in his fingertips a soft contact lens while the light is reflected on the other side representative of eyesight forming the Google logo in the background. As 27 October marks the 108 birth anniversary of Otto Wichterle, Google made an effort to remember the genius by celebrating the day.

Google wrote a birthday message on its blog post by wishing Happy Birthday to Otto Wichterle and thanking him for helping the world see eye to eye. Otto Wichterle was a Czech Chemist born on 27 October 1913 in the present-day Czech Republic earlier as Austria Hungary. In the year 1936, Otto Wichterle passed his doctorate degree in the subject of Organic chemistry from ICT, Prague Institute of Chemical technology.

He developed a transparent and absorbent gel for eye implants during the 1950s. He had introduced the first successful four hydrogels contact lenses in 1961 on a homemade apparatus with the help of very strange things like a bell transformer, a building kit for children, his son's bicycle dynamo. After successfully completing his task with lense Wichterle tried it in his own eyes and found it comfortable.

Otto Wichterle as a lifelong researcher and inventor of numerous patents was elected as the President of the Czech Republic Academy. Wichterle took his last breath on 18 August of the year 1998 and died at the age of 84. The average age of people who wear contact lenses all over the world is 31. The modern soft contact lenses invented by Otto Wichterle are at present used by approximately 140 million people across the globe as the need for eyesight.

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