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by DonHopkins 223 days ago
I asked Lee about that great photo and he wrote:

Prototype for the Automatic Photoelectric Keratometer, (US 4,345,437 - 1966, to Westheimer and Felsenstein). Taken by myself in the lab of Gerald Westheimer in 1965.

Vacuum tube electronics of my design controlling an oscilloscope pattern focused on a sumulated eyeball with two photomultiplier tubes catching the glint (specular) reflection and reversing the sweep direction.

A poor idea which went nowhere but it got a patent for the professor who generously included me as co-inventor and coauthor of a paper.

UC Berkeley School of Optometry — I was a Lab Helper at $2.03/hour. Prof. Westheimer later moved to Physiology. He was 99 in 2023 when we last met.