We have moved!

Things change for the better!

The Write Eye is now The Scientific Papers! We have moved here.

Please do not forget to change the necessary details in your bookmark!

[P.S. All archived articles from The Write Eye are still available.]

Posted in Events, Uncategorized

On how the line between contemporary physics and science fiction is thinning

Sherlock Holmes, in, if I recall right, ‘A case of identity,’ says to Watson, “Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.” This, I believe, is a reference to the much older saying ‘ fact is stranger than fiction’ and has in today’s world as much, or perhaps even more, relevance than when it was coined; and I daresay its relevance will increase with time.
I refer to the state of physics today because, to many people whom I’ve come across, physics is today the kind of reality that was but fantasy in their times. Surprisingly, though, this does not apply only to adults: my own peer group is almost always taken aback when I talk of strings and multiple dimensions just like I probably was when I first read about current researches in physics. But the one question that perhaps bothers everyone is whether physics in its state of being the  oldest, most advanced and the fastest developing discipline on Earth is intertwining itself with metaphysics (which has got, ironically, a similar sounding name) and attempting to be the ultimate answer to every question that can possibly be raised.
What I say is that if physics is even turning towards metaphysics, it is solely because physicists feel the need to let the layman know what they are doing so they can expect some sport in return. Arguably, physics would have been the socially isolated science that was purely rich kid’s domain (which it indeed was once) even today had it remained purely ‘scientific.’ But this still does not satisfy our curiosity as to whether physics is really a fantastic world and not a realistic one.
I will, of course, have to agree there are many people, some who are even physicists (like Einstein himself, rather ironically,) who believe the discipline is following certain impossible ideas nowadays. Take the fact that nothing on Earth can be certainly predicted, only in terms of mathematical probability, which is an inference drawn from the quantum mechanical theory and which led Einstein to say “God does not play dice,” and you’ll know what I mean.
Take the string theory for instance: Dalton’s theory clearly and explicitly spoke of indivisible atoms. Today we have come to a conclusion that these atoms are made of elections and protons and neutrons and that these protons and neutrons and numerous other particles are masses of quarks held together by strings.
What we will find in the days to come, nobody knows; but we do know that, and, perhaps, this is a cliché, every question we  answer will inevitably give rise to more questions. There are very few questions that we can actually give answers to without fearing the wrath of another question right after that. One such question is the famous (once) paradox, “Did the chicken come first out the egg?” We can answer this question without fear as “the egg.”
[There is no doubt as to the answer here, but let me make the issue clear by taking a moment to clarify to some of my readers who for some reason believe that there is a great deal of validity at shooting at me an ingenious question as to how the egg came. We have, in science, answered this question close to a year back and the reasoning is simple: a chicken cannot have come from anywhere except the egg, and, clearly, not bring the first such animal on land and having already acquired data about the present-day chicken being a relative of the dinosaur, we concluded, erasing all doubt that the egg came from the dinosaur. And out is only in the foetal stages that such dramatic gene alterations can occur, not after the chicken is out, up and about. Clearly, the egg came first, perhaps as an immature little chicken, but as a chicken nonetheless.]
I shall go ahead hoping I have rendered you defensive for the next time when you are posed this question! Our present-day physics might be rather like science fiction and there is a slim chance we might someday revert back to purely relativistic physics and open a new doorway for ourselves. But for that day to come, we must live the many (or few) days that exist between then and now!

Posted in General, Science | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Wikipedia celebrated its tenth anniversary—and I was there!

I am still panting as I pen this article: I just returned from Wikipedia‘s 1oth anniversary celebrations that were, fortunately, held in my city–one of the few Indian cities selected to host this memorable event.

Dedicating myself to websites does not particularly entertain me. Be it facebook or myspace or some gaming website, I might participate, I might enjoy for a while but that is it; that is to say, apart from my own website, what you are reading now, and Wikipedia and a few select others, I would not like to fully identify myself with most other sites. This is one of the most important ideas of living on the internet (your web presence as it is called) because you leave footprints here that are as indestructable as the ones Neil Armstrong left on the moon. One wrong move and that just may haunt you forever. The internet is us crawling on dangerous ground and for those who are not quick enough to adapt and change almost at every instant–while not risking being dubbed a luddite–the internet had better become forbidden territory. But even for these, there exist respectable websites where the  sense of community is so strong, so ethical and so value-based that little scope does an unwelcome visitor have. And when knowledge is involved, you can be sure it is filled with no-nonsense people. Wikipedia is one such safe-zone.

Wikipedia

I have nothing to say here that has not been authoritatively said on Wikipedia itself; but for some of my readers who might not have as much knowledge of the site as I dare expect, let me provide a brief introduction.

You will find out that Wiki means quick if you ever travel to Hawii. Apparently they have wikibuses there (you know what that means.) So that and the word -pedia from encyclopaedia participate in a portmanteau to become Wikipedia. It is a quick encyclopedia, which is, no doubt, true, but that is not really mentioned anywhere on the site. What they do say is the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. And that is just what it is, stated in a sentence.

Below I reproduce the introduction to itself on Wikipedia:

Wikipedia (/ˌwɪkɪˈpdi.ə/ or /ˌwɪkiˈpdi.ə/ WIK-i-PEE-dee-ə) is a free, web-basedcollaborativemultilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profitWikimedia Foundation. Its 17 million articles (over 3.5 million in English) have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world, and almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site. Wikipedia was launched in 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger and has become the largest and most popular general reference work on the Internet, ranking eighth among all websites on Alexa and having 365 million readers.

Although the policies of Wikipedia strongly espouse verifiability and a neutral point of viewcritics of Wikipedia accuse it of systemic bias and inconsistencies (including undue weight given to popular culture), and allege that it favors consensus over credentials in its editorial processes. Its reliability and accuracy are also targeted. Other criticisms center on its susceptibility to vandalism and the addition of spurious or unverified information,[14] though scholarly work suggests that vandalism is generally short-lived, and an investigation in Nature found that the science articles they compared came close to the level of accuracy of Encyclopædia Britannica and had a similar rate of “serious errors”.

Wikipedia’s departure from the expert-driven style of the encyclopedia building mode and the large presence of unacademic content have been noted several times. When Time magazine recognized You as its Person of the Year for 2006, acknowledging the accelerating success of online collaboration and interaction by millions of users around the world, it cited Wikipedia as one of several examples of Web 2.0 services, along with YouTubeMySpace, and Facebook. Some noted the importance of Wikipedia not only as an encyclopedic reference but also as a frequently updated news resource because of how quickly articles about recent events appear. Students have been assigned to write Wikipedia articles as an exercise in clearly and succinctly explaining difficult concepts to an uninitiated audience.

Tenth anniversary

Yesterday the Wikipedia community in Bangalore celebrated the event and today (16th January 2011) we celebrated it in Mysore. We have not got as yet a community in this city but we hope to create one shortly.

The reason I support Wikipedia–in spite of empty claims of its being inaccurate–is the novel idea behind it: to deliver to the world, for free, the sum of all knowledge of the human race. What more could one ask for (I know that is a cliche, but it is an evergreen cliche!)

We started off at the CMS auditorium of JSS Engineering College here in Mysore where a small crowd of forty-five people or so attended it. The hall was tiny and comfortable so the online community feeling of Wikipedia was, and I had not expected this, maintained even offline! This was perhaps the best part of the whole event.

H Nadig introducing the participants to Wikimedia

We started off a tad late with an introduction to the Wikimedia project, after having received our tiny badges and registering ourselves. Mr Hari Prasad Nadig who had monitored the Bangalore event came, quite drained out, to the city but did a neat job of opening for us the windows into the Wikimedia project. There were most of us who were well aware with the project while there were some who were not, but it proved to be a good launch pad for both groups for the day’s event, which was, as one of the volunteers, and my good friend, Vinay, (of Royal Mysore Walks,) said, ‘on a Sunday morning!’

Then we had some snacks, the traditional sweetmeat called Mysore Pak and some tea, and returned to one of the main focuses of the celebration: Wikipedia in kannada. With Indian languages being pivotal participants in growing the Wikipedia knowledge base, and with kannada having its place among the top few, it has also featured in Wikipedia’s new symbol (version 2) pictured above with the kannada letter circled in red.

Dr Pavanaja then took us around Wikipedia in Kannada–how it works, how we type with our English keyboards (that was something bothering us all) and how we can, and need to as people of Karnataka, contribute to it. Then Mr Kiran who works on Wiktionary (Wikimedia’s any language to your language dictionary) told us how we could expand the database and also how w can contribute to kannada. He mentioned that, though there were very few contributors presently, there had been a huge rise in the kannada vocabulary stored in Wikipedia.

Dr Pavanaja speaking about Wikipedia in Kannada

After this Mr Lokesh, CEO of Innomantra, took us through one of the key points of contributing to Wikipedia in a very organised slide presentation. He spoke to us about what legal restrictions exist while updating to Wikipedia, and what licenses will act impliedly on putting up some knowledge on the web, on Wikipedia. He also spoke of various creative commons licenses where many Wikipedia articles are licensed (and where, incidentally, this website is also licensed!) He finally told us how we tend to skip the copyright issues while playing around with data on the web and how we most commonly tend to take Google Images as something free of copyright and end up justifying ourselves. The talk was enlightening indeed.

At the CMS auditorium

The penultimate session was a panel discussion with the participants, moderated by Mr Nadig. The panel consisted of Dr Pavanja, Dr Chidananda Gowda, Lokesh, Kiran and Rakesh. We bombarded them with questions and they cleared our every doubt. The main discussion revolved around how we can encourage more participation in Wikipedia, what with its being a community thing, and we generally concluded saying we had to–being a small group presently–intertwine with as many pre-existing groups with aims directed towards community-based participation so as to be able to reach out more effectively. We were also then introduced to the new Wikireader that brought Wikipedia to our hands, on the go, though text-only.

Mr Lokesh, CEO, Innomantra giving a presentation on the copyright laws around Wikipedia

We were then given Wikipedia mechandise–T-shirts in varied styles where we got to take our pick and stickers that we could proudly post on our laptops (and there is one on mine as I write this article.)

We then had lunch and began an hour-long Wikimarathon where some newbies were taught the basics of editing on and contributing to Wikipedia. The rest of us who had already done it went on with our usual practice and added some more content. We did not have the required softwares to edit the kannada content so that proved to be a problem on Wiktionary, but the english version was easy and interesting as ever.

The panel discussion

With that we ended our six-hour long celebration of Wikipedia’s tenth anniversary. It was a  memorable and exciting day filled with lots and lots of knowledge.

With the whole community participating, Wikipedia will live long. And this is an excellent instance of the power that the human race, combined, wields.

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Wormholes and paradoxes

“There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. Yet that will be the beginning.”

– Louis L’Amour


Physics is getting more interesting by the second. But what I talk of now is not a very new topic. It is no doubt contemporary but not something that happened last week. Wormholes are the results of solving the equations of general relativity, which means they exist only theoretically. And indeed we have not seen real-life instances of them either.

The concept

The idea of wormholes looks like it has jumped right out of some sci-fi novel; but the idea has a considerably solid theoretical base. Wormholes are basically tunnels in space-time, so far only mathematically, that connect different parts of the universe. There is more to add to this definition but let us understand this bit first.

Space-time (a concept first introduced by Einstein) is analogous to a fabric that curves when a massive object falls on it. And any object within the span, or influence, of that curve will tend to fall inside, towards the massive object–what we call gravity. Surprisingly, this reasoning and picture of gravity as a process/phenomenon rather than an unexplainable force, whose effects alone we can see.

So having understood this vital idea, we shall now return to wormholes. If this fabric (of space-time) were to curve for some reason, either like the letter U or if there were, perhaps, many layers of these the concept of wormholes is very important.

Let us first examine the latter idea: suppose there were multiple, unconnected fabrics, like layers of cloth, the only way we can move from one layer to another would be by cutting a small hole in one and jumping to another. Or, if we refined this further, by building some kind of tunnel from the surface of one fabric to the other. But the problem is that this would take us to the opposite surface of the second and leave us with no means to reach the third layer of fabric. A much complicated problem we shall talk about some other day.

As for the first idea, that of the same space-time fabric, bending, this problem does not occur.

Clearly, in this case, the traveller is still on the same portion of the wormhole (either red or blue.) This means, in a universe that curves around like this and in other similar but more complicated patterns, the quickest way to travel from one place to another would be wormholes. This also explains why, given that you cannot travel faster than light, many famous sci-fi programmes on TV (like Star Trek) use the concept of traveling through wormholes to cover large distance. In the above figure, no matter how fast you travel, moving along the red line will take more of your time than moving along the green one. And that’s how Star Trek saves money (and fuel!)

The paradox

Having understood wormholes, let us return to our definition. I had stated that it is a tunnel connecting different parts of the universe i.e. of space. But, once again from Einstein, we have the concept of intertwining space and time (which is how we arrived at space-time in the first place.) In other words, space can change, it is not absolute; and time, being twisted into it, is also a variable and is not absolute. That is, time can vary from universe to universe. And just as gravity can slow you down at times (when you are far away from Earth and you approach it, that is) gravity can slow time down too!

So, given that different if parts of the universe were at different periods of time, would traveling to a different part of space not mean traveling to a different part of time? And would this then (because it is different from what your time is now) not mean traveling backwards or forwards into time?

We have found no such problem with traveling to the future. A paradox that arises, however, when you do travel backwards is called the grandfather paradox first given by the writer Rene Barjavel. The paradox is this, if you were to travel back in time and kill your, say, grandfather before he met your grandmother, then you would not be alive and neither would you parents. Then the only explanation is that you are not born–or to make it more believable, that you did not travel back in time.

Stephen Hawking introduced a variation of this called the mad scientist paradox. In it, a scientist creates a wormhole that lets him travel one minute back in time. He loads a gun and enters the wormhole. Once inside, he sees out at himself as he was one minute ago, loading a gun–and he shoots at himself. His self in the present falls down dead. But one minute ago he is still alive and the question now is who fired the shot?

The possible answer

To these paradoxes I have my own ideas. For instance, instead of claiming he did not travel back in time, let us formulate a simple law: that, being in higher dimensions (or lower ones, as a higher dimension affects the ones below it; or perhaps this clause does not matter at all!) the figure that has entered a region in space is where he cannot make contact with the scenarios existing at that time in the past which is in question.

Also, a second explanation Hawking gives to this near-impossibility is that feedback radiations from the wormhole will enter the tunnel and be drawn out the other side.

My question is merely, how will the vibrations once fed be drawn back to the present without going through another wormhole? Or perhaps it will go in through the same? In the first case (assuming the radiation explanation is true) wormholes must necessarily exist in pairs and be one-way only. In case of the second, a wormhole has to be divided somehow into sections clearly defined by their ability to allow for a one-way movement through each part–and each of which should in turn be clearly specified.

This creates more problems for us, but what else goes on in physics without fail, every time a question in answered? More questions of course. As Louis L’Amour said: “There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. Yet that will be the beginning.”

Posted in Astrophysics, Science | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

An atomic memory storage for a 112 second: the future of memory devices?

According to the paper by physicists at the University of Utah [University of Utah (2010, December 16). Computer memory takes a spin: Physicists read data after storing them in atomic nuclei for 112 seconds,] the physicists there have successfully stored information–like in a computer–in an atom for a 112 second period and got it right back, untouched, creating history; and bringing the possibility of a future quantum computing to the fore.

Atomic spin memory is analogous to computer memory

“The length of spin memory we observed is more than adequate to create memories for computers,” says Christoph Boehme, associate professor of physics and senior author of the new study published in Science, “It’s a completely new way of storing and reading information. Yes, you could immediately build a memory chip this way, but do you want a computer that has to be operated at 454 degrees below zero Fahrenheit and in a big national magnetic laboratory environment? First we want to learn how to do it at higher temperatures, which are more practical for a device, and without these strong magnetic fields to align the spins.”

To elaborate on Boehme’s statement, we must understand the conditions at which the data was stored: at 3.2 degrees Kelvin, slightly above absolute zero where atoms actually almost freeze to a standstill, and only can jiggle a little bit; and powerful magnetic fields roughly 200,000 times stronger than Earth’s!

As for obtaining an electrical readout of data held within atomic nuclei, “nobody has done this before,” Bohme adds.

Two years ago, another group of scientists reported storing so-called quantum data for two seconds within atomic nuclei, but they did not read it electronically, as Boehme and colleagues did in the new study, which used classical data (0 or 1) rather than quantum data (0 and 1 simultaneously). The technique was developed in a 2006 study by Boehme, who showed it was feasible to read data stored in the net magnetic spin of 10,000 electrons in phosphorus atoms embedded in a silicon semiconductor.

The study was led by Boehme and first author Dane McCamey, a former research assistant professor of physics at the University of Utah and still an adjunct assistant professor. His main affiliation now is with the University of Sydney. The remaining co-authors were Hans van Tol of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, and Gavin Morley of University College, London.

The study was funded by the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, the National Science Foundation, the Australian Research Council, Britain’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851, a British funding agency led by Prince Philip.

Of Electronic and Spintronic Memories

Modern computers are electronic, meaning that information is processed and stored by flowing electricity in the form of electrons, which are negatively charged subatomic particles that orbit the nucleus of each atom. Transistors in computers are electrical switches that store data as “bits” in which “off” (no electrical charge) and “on” (charge is present) represent one bit of information: either 0 or 1.

Quantum computers — a yet-unrealized goal — would run on the odd principles of quantum mechanics, in which the smallest particles of light and matter can be in different places at the same time. In a quantum computer, one quantum bit or “qubit” could be both 0 and 1 at the same time. That means quantum computers theoretically could be billions of times faster than conventional computers.

McCamey says a memory made of silicon “doped” with phosphorus atoms could be used in both conventional electronic computers and in quantum computers in which data is stored not by “on” or “off” electrical charges, but by “up” or “down” magnetic spins in the nuclei of phosphorus atoms.

Externally applied electric fields would be used to read and process the data stored as “spins” — just what McCamey, Boehme and colleagues did in their latest study. By demonstrating an ability to read data stored in nuclear spins, the physicists took a key step in linking spin to conventional electronics — a field called spintronics.

Spin is an unfamiliar concept to comprehend. A simplified way to describe spin is to imagine that each particle — like an electron or proton in an atom — contains a tiny bar magnet, like a compass needle, that points either up or down to represent the particle’s spin. Down and up can represent 0 and 1 in a spin-based quantum computer.

Boehme says the spins of atoms’ nuclei are better for storing information than the spin of electrons. That’s because electron spin orientations have short lifetimes because spins are easily changed by nearby electrons and the temperature within atoms.

In contrast, “the nucleus sits in the middle of an atom and its spin isn’t messed with by what’s going on in the clouds of electrons around the nucleus,” McCamey says. “Nuclei experience nearly perfect solitude. That’s why nuclei are a good place to store information magnetically. Nuclear spins where we store information have extremely long storage times before the information decays.”

The average 112 second storage time in the new study may not seem long, but Boehme says the dynamic random access memory (DRAM) in a modern PC or laptop stores information for just milliseconds (thousandths of a second). The information must be repeatedly refreshed, which is how computer memory is maintained, he adds.

Below I give a piece from Science Daily on how the storage and reading process actually went on.

How to Store and Then Read Data in the Spins of Atomic Nuclei

For the experiments, McCamey, Boehme and colleagues used a thin, phosphorus-doped silicon wafer measuring 1 millimeter square, and placed electrical contacts on it. The device was inside a supercold container, and surrounded by intense magnetic fields. Wires connected the device to a current source and an oscilloscope to record data.

The physicists used powerful magnetic fields of 8.59 Tesla to align the spins of phosphorus electrons. That’s 200,000 times stronger than Earth’s magnetic field.

Then, pulses of near-terahertz electromagnetic waves were used to “write” up or down spins onto electrons orbiting phosphorus atoms. Next, FM-range radio waves were used to take the spin data stored in the electrons and write it onto the phosphorus nuclei.

Later, other pulses of near-terahertz waves were used to transfer the nuclear spin information back into the orbiting electrons, and trigger the readout process. The readout is produced because the electrons’ spins are converted into variations in electrical current.

“We read the spin of the nuclei in the reverse of the way we write information,” Boehme says. “We have a mechanism that turns electron spin into a current.”

Summarizing the process, Boehme says, “We basically wrote 1 in atoms’ nuclei. We have shown we can write and read [spin data in nuclei],” and shown that the information can be repeatedly read from the nuclei for an average of 112 seconds before all the phosphorus nuclei lose their spin information. In a much shorter time, the physicists read and reread the same nuclear spin data 2,000 times, showing the act of reading the spin data doesn’t destroy it, making the memory reliable, Boehme says.

Reading out the data stored as spin involved reading the collective spins of a large number of nuclei and electrons, Boehme says. That will work for classical computers, but not for quantum computers, for which readouts must be able to discern the spins of single nuclei, he adds. Boehme hopes that can be achieved within a few years.

Posted in General, Science | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Post Physics A Week!

My website platform came up with a novel idea some time back. They asked their subscribers to enter a Post A Day or a Post A Week campaign. As the name suggests, I will, on enrolling for this campaign, have to post at least once a day or once a week (depending on which of the two I enroll for.)

I’m a populariser of Physics and being that, it is important that I deliver to my readers what they have signed up for. I believe I’ve been doing that quite well for the past couple of years. Anyway, popularising physics–at least that part of it which comes within my boundaries–involves writing regularly and on contemporary ideas, those running Physics today. But this is easier said than done, what with my studies and all!

However, to keep on track, I decided to enroll myself for the Post A Week campaign that will see me educating my readers at least once a week. I said at least, so make sure I’ll be here more often, writing more often; but I will surely do it at least once in seven days…starting today!

“I will be spreading the knowledge of contemporary physics and new ideas sprouting in the scientific world much more regularly in 2011, after having enrolled for the Post A Week campaign which binds me to write for my readers at least once a week, or more often–a treat both to my readers and (perhaps more so) to me!”

To end dramatically, and in a manner my hosts suggested, I’ll just sign below so you can think of this as a kind of resolution/contract! What fun!

Signed,

Venkatram Harish Belvadi.

 

[PS 2011 here we come!]

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Does Laser eye-surgery last indefinitely? Guest Author Tim Harwood answers.

Laser eye surgery is without doubt any amazing procedure, giving people the opportunity to throw away their glasses and contact lenses. Laser eye surgery has actual been around a lot longer than most people realise and it was first carried out over 20 years ago, admittedly not with the same impressive results as we expect today. In the early days, laser eye surgery was far more invasive than it is today, leaving people with extensive corneal scarring and variable results. Laser eye surgery risks were also far higher and they also tended to be more serious. Today however, laser eye surgery is minimally invasive and the results are extremely impressive. Around 95% of people having the procedure will end up with 20:20 vision and almost 100% will have driving standard of vision or better. Laser eye surgery is the most common elective surgery available and is far more popular than even the most common cosmetic surgery procedures.

For those deciding whether or not to have laser eye surgery then one of the most commonly asked questions is just how long the visual results are likely to last. This article is going to outline the most important points you need to know about this aspect of laser eye surgery:

  • Laser re-treatments: Around 6% of all laser eye surgery procedures will have to be repeated with a ‘top up’ treatment. This is normally done for free by the clinic that carried out the original procedure and it may only be required for one eye. To illustrate how laser re-enhancements work, it is best to use an example. Imagine your prescription was -7.00 Dioptres prior to your surgery and then after surgery your prescription was completely eliminated to zero, meaning you had perfect vision. Then over the course of the next year your prescription slowly regressed to -1.00. This is obviously only a fraction of what your prescription was before you had the surgery but it is enough to affect your vision. The laser is then re-applied to re-correct this remaining prescription.
  • Long sighted prescriptions: Long sighted prescriptions (plus e.g. +5.00) are more likely to regress than short sighted (minus e.g. -3.00) prescriptions.
  • Higher prescriptions: The higher the prescription the more likely you are to need a laser re-enhancement. The reason for this is that the more something has changed, the more likely it is to return back to its original state.
  • Reading glasses as you get older: Regardless of whether you have had laser eye surgery or not, you are still going to need reading glasses as you reach your mid 40’s. This is related to the lens in your eye that slowly loses its power which is a condition called presbyopia.
  • Eye diseases: As we get older so the chances of us getting age related conditions such as cataracts increases. Cataracts typically start affecting us aged around 70 years old and they can cause a change in our prescription. So even though you may have had laser eye surgery previously the cataracts could mean you end up needing glasses as you get older.

So as you can see having laser eye surgery does not guarantee that you will be free from glasses/contact lenses for life but for most people they will at least have perfect distance vision for a prolonged period of time.


Tim Harwood is an Optometrist with over 8 years in practice with a specialist interest in both laser eye surgery and contact lenses. He has worked both in the UK and Australia and worked for both Multiple and Independent opticians.

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