The guy sounds like a quack to me. Barefoot running, doesn't know if people got running injuries in the past. What??? Yes I'm sure nobody got torn meniscuses, groin injuries, etc. in the past. Everyone ran around injury free forever until the 4 minute mile was broken.
From Wikipedia;
History
The earliest written record of magnification dates back to the 1st century AD, when Seneca the Younger, a tutor of Emperor Nero of Rome, wrote: "Letters, however small and indistinct, are seen enlargedd and more clearly through a globe or glass filled with water".[1] Nero (reigned 54–68 AD) is also said to have watched the gladiatorial games using an emerald as a corrective lens.[2]
The use of a convex lens to form a magnified image is discussed in Alhazen's Book of Optics (1021). Its translation into Latin from Arabic in the 12th century was instrumental to the invention of eyeglasses in 13th century Italy.[1]
Englishman Robert Grosseteste's treatise De iride ("On the Rainbow"), written between 1220 and 1235, mentions using optics to "read the smallest letters at incredible distances". A few years later in 1262, Roger Bacon is also known to have written on the magnifying properties of lenses.[3]
Sunglasses, in the form of flat panes of smoky quartz, were used in China during the 12th century.[a] Similarly, the Inuit have used snow goggles for eye protection. While they did not offer any corrective benefits[5] they did improve visual acuity by narrowing the field of vision[6] in a way related to the pinhole camera effect.
Invention of eyeglasses[edit]
The 'Glasses Apostle' by Conrad von Soest (1403)The first eyeglasses were made in Italy at about 1286, according to a sermon delivered on February 23, 1306, by the Dominican friar Giordano da Pisa (ca. 1255–1311): "It is not yet twenty years since there was found the art of making eyeglasses, which make for good vision...And it is so short a time that this new art, never before extant, was discovered...I saw the one who first discovered and practiced it, and I talked to him."[7] Giordano's colleague Friar Alessandro della Spina of Pisa (d. 1313) was soon making eyeglasses. The Ancient Chronicle of the Dominican Monastery of St. Catherine in Pisa records: "Eyeglasses, having first been made by someone else, who was unwilling to share them, he [Spina] made them and shared them with everyone with a cheerful and willing heart."[8] By 1301, there were guild regulations in Venice governing the sale of eyeglasses.[9]
In 1907, Professor Berthold Laufer, who was a German-American anthropologist, stated in his history of spectacles that 'the opinion that spectacles originated in India is of the greatest probability and that spectacles must have been known in India earlier than in Europe'.[10][11]
However, Joseph Needham showed that the mention of spectacles in the manuscript Laufer used to justify the prior invention of them in Asia did not exist in older versions of that manuscript, and the reference to them in later versions was added during the Ming dynasty[12] —after eyeglasses had been invented in Europe.
The German word brille (eyeglasses) is derived ultimately from Sanskrit vaidurya.[13] Etymologically, brille is derived from beryl, Latin beryllus, from Greek beryllos, perhaps from Prakrit veruliya, from Sanskrit vaidurya, of Dravidian origin from the city of Velur (modern Belur). Medieval Latin berillus was applied to any precious stone, to fine crystal, and to eyeglasses, hence German brille, from Middle High German berille, and French besicles (plural) "spectacles," altered from Old French bericle.[14]
Although there have been claims that Salvino degli Armati of Florence invented eyeglasses, these claims have been exposed as hoaxes.[15][16] Furthermore, although there have been claims that Marco Polo encountered eyeglasses during his travels in China in the 13th century, no such statement appears in his accounts.[17][18] Indeed, the earliest mentions of eyeglasses in China occur in the 15th century and those Chinese sources state that eyeglasses were imported.[19]
Seated apostle holding lenses in position for reading. Detail from Death of the Virgin, by the Master of Heiligenkreuz, ca. 1400–30 (Getty Center).The earliest pictorial evidence for the use of eyeglasses is Tommaso da Modena's 1352 portrait of the cardinal Hugh de Provence reading in a scriptorium. Another early example would be a depiction of eyeglasses found north of the Alps in an altarpiece of the church of Bad Wildungen, Germany, in 1403.
These early spectacles had convex lenses that could correct both hyperopia (farsightedness), and the presbyopia that commonly develops as a symptom of aging. It was not until 1604 that Johannes Kepler published the first correct explanation as to why convex and concave lenses could correct presbyopia and myopia.
Later developments[edit]
A portrait of Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas, 1580–1645
Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States, was known to have poor eyesight.The American scientist Benjamin Franklin, who suffered from both myopia and presbyopia, invented bifocals. Serious historians have from time to time produced evidence to suggest that others may have preceded him in the invention; however, a correspondence between George Whatley and John Fenno, editor of The Gazette of the United States, suggested that Franklin had indeed invented bifocals, and perhaps 50 years earlier than had been originally thought.[22]
The first lenses for correcting Astigmatism were designed by the British astronomer George Airy in 1825.[23]
Over time, the construction of spectacle frames also evolved. Early eyepieces were designed to be either held in place by hand or by exerting pressure on the nose (pince-nez). Girolamo Savonarola suggested that eyepieces could be held in place by a ribbon passed over the wearer's head, this in turn secured by the weight of a hat. The modern style of glasses, held by temples passing over the ears, was developed some time before 1727, possibly by the British optician Edward Scarlett. These designs were not immediately successful, however, and various styles with attached handles such as "scissors-glasses" and lorgnettes were also fashionable from the second half of the 18th century and into the early 19th century.
In the early 20th century, Moritz von Rohr at Zeiss (with the assistance of H. Boegehold and A. Sonnefeld[24]), developed the Zeiss Punktal spherical point-focus lenses that dominated the eyeglass lens field for many years.
In 2008, Joshua Silver designed the AdSpecs, which are spectacles with a self-adjustable glasses.[25]
Despite the increasing popularity of contact lenses and laser corrective eye surgery, glasses remain very common, as their technology has improved. For instance, it is now possible to purchase frames made of special memory metal alloys that return to their correct shape after being bent. Other frames have spring-loaded hinges. Either of these designs offers dramatically better ability to withstand the stresses of daily wear and the occasional accident. Modern frames are also often made from strong, light-weight materials such as titanium alloys, which were not available in earlier times