So in the spirit of vision and the study of the eye, I decided to do a little research on the history of Optometry, and I came across some interesting information connecting optometry to the German mathematician, Johannes Kepler. Kepler, although renowned for his study of astronomy, was in fact the first person to correctly describe how light enters the eye. He proposed that as light enters the eye, the lens focuses light on the retina, forming an image. Kepler's theory was met with much speculation from the Western scientific world at the time (Tombran, Joyce). It's pretty interesting that someone could formulate an important, long-lasting theory that isn't rooted in his/her field of expertise, yet a mathemetician was able to join the ranks of various physiologists as one of the pioneers of modern optometry.
Source(s):
http://books.google.com/books?id=aKyHHgAf-csC&pg=PR7&lpg=PR7&dq=johannes+kepler+retina&source=bl&ots=Q_jyhAbvYt&sig=Oodjuf53pGBJfA7H4Go4S1824Bo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=MWUjT6TKHIiWtwfQ94nNBQ&sqi=2&ved=0CEIQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=johannes%20kepler%20retina&f=false
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