Talk:Pinhole glasses

Comment
I added the category of 'quackery' to the article, as it's all I could find that it fitted into neatly. It might fit into 'Category:Alternative medical treatments derived from western culture' too. --Randolph 02:11, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Category
I'm not sure "Quackery" is very appropriate. Simply lacking "sufficient scientific evidence" (whose substantiation has been questioned at various times by the US courts) does not qualify something to be a "quackery". The term in itself is derogative and does not apply to this particular article. Simple science that any fifth grade student could understand explains how this is a viable alternative (and possible substitute) to prescription eyeglasses priced two to ten times higher. I've also heard the "practicing medicine in your home" arguments, but does that make OTC medications such as aspirin or acetemenaphin a "quackery"? Cypherjitsu 02:20, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

It should not be quackery. I know people that use these. It may not be the same calibre as Glasses but they are useful. --Jspr (talk) 04:12, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

2 separate claims
There are two separate claims

(1) Pinholes can replace prescription glasses.

This is not disputed. Basic camera optics will tell you that reducing aperture size will increase depth of field, causing more objects to come into focus

(2) Pinholes can improve eyesight

This is disputed, related to the dispute over the validity of the Bates Method.

Yuenkitmun (talk) 14:59, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Bates method?
Why is there a link to the Bates method article in the See also section? René van Buuren 13:05, 10 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Probably because the Bates method is another "vision improvement" system of dubious efficacy and provinence. Famousdog 14:02, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Bates Method
Pinholes are related to Bates because pinholes train your eyes to see clearly through one hole at a time (otherwise you see multiple images, your eye/brain will adjust to see clearly i.e. ignore other holes and see through one hole at a time - unfortunately I do not have references for this).

This is consistent with Bates theory e.g. reading small font text to train eyes to focus on only one small point at a time.

Yuenkitmun (talk) 14:53, 4 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It is probably difficult to find a reference for seeing through one pinhole at a time because it cannot possibly work that way. Just my opinion. David spector (talk) 00:55, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Useful ref
--Ronz (talk) 14:24, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
 * http://www.optometrists.asn.au/eyevision/consumers/pinholes
 * That website has changed. I can't find that article from the association's front page. --Egmonster (talk) 04:22, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8436795
 * 1. S. Wittenberg, “Pinhole eyewear systems: a special report.,” J Am Optom Assoc 64, no. 2 (1993): 112-6.

--Darked (talk) 22:11, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

--Un11imig (talk) 18:01, 6 May 2018 (UTC) Some new references that suggest and improvement on the vision due to the use of pinhole glasses. 1- Kim WS, Park IK, Chun YS. 2014, Quantitative analysis of functional changes caused by pinhole glasses. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 2014;55:6679–6685. DOI:10.1167/iovs.14-14801 2-Jung-Bok Kim·Byoung-Sun Chu, 2015,Effect of Multi pinhole glasses on Visual Acuity and Accommodation, Korean J. Vis. Sci. Vol. 17, No. 3 3- Won Soo Kim, In Ki Park,Young Kee Park and Yeoun Sook Chun, 2017, Comparison of Objective and Subjective Changes Induced by Multiple-Pinhole Glasses and Single-Pinhole Glasses, Ophthalmology, The Korean Academy of Medical Sciences. https://doi.org/10.3346/jkms.2017.32.5.850

Maybe is time to review the article.

POV
I've started some pov cleanup. The article history and references shows a overwhelming bias to those who promote such glasses. Most of the references were from unreliable sources that fail WP:SELFPUB, WP:EL, WP:SPAM. I've removed the sources and corresponding information, moving the one good source to the section above. --Ronz (talk) 14:28, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

re-additions
I've rephrased and re-added the passage about the marketing of pinhole glasses. I'm offering this as an example of how to negotiate these problems in the future, since it seems that the two of you (Ronz and PSWG1920) are going to be crossing paths a lot. so please note: I'm always glad to help out, but I don't want to get in the habit of intruding on articles that really aren't in my scope, so... :-) -- Ludwigs 2 16:52, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Ronz -clearly this is an important aspect of the history of Pinhole Glasses, so it should be in the article.
 * PSWG- clearly we don't want to give the impression that Pinhole Glasses are an effective treatment. your edit was far too lenient on them
 * everyone - it's always better to edit than revert
 * PSWG - if you could take the time to accurately represent the material that would help a lot, and save ruffled feathers.
 * Ronz - if you could edit additions like this to make sure they are balanced, rather than simply eliminating them, these issues will settle out quickly and the page will be better for it.
 * Thanks for the help! --Ronz (talk) 17:50, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't see why
I don't get why the narrow holes in the glasses would reduce the size of the circle of confusion. Contraction of the pupil has that effect, but this is a completely different thing. It is not like the light is guaranteed to hit in the middle of the lens just because it passes through a small hole. Look at the picture http://img.tfd.com/dorland/refraction.jpg, and imagine that the eye has a refraction error that causes the case b or c. There becomes a circle of confusion because the two beams of light (the dotted lines) do not meet on the retina. Now imagine that the person having that refraction error puts on a couple of pinhole glasses. Say that there happen to be two holes in the glasses exactly where the two beams of light passes by (there are holes distributed all over the glasses); the beams will pass the glasses and enter the eye. Since they won't change direction when they pass the glasses, they will still hit the retina on the same spot, causing an equally large circle of confusion as before. Or have I missed anything? --Kri (talk) 21:36, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The CoC caused by lenses is a result of imperfections in the shape of the lens, dispersion (the fact that light of different colors focus at different distances), and other more minor effects. All of these cannot happen with pinholes, since a pinhole has no refractive index that differs from that of the surrounding air, nor any other characteristics of a lens. All a pinhole does is mask out all light rays except those that happen to come to a focus at the pinhole. This produces the same effect as a monochromatic spherical lens, just by a different mechanism. The much smaller CoC is because a pinhole is more accurate than a lens (at the expense of brightness, since very few light rays will happen to be in focus at the pinhole). There is no a priori reason for a pinhole (or a field of pinholes) to be therapeutic, since their functioning is the same as that of a lens: they simply focus an image a little clearer and a little dimmer. David spector (talk) 01:14, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Miscrediting article
Pinhole glasses helped me to improve my eye-sight. More credit should be given to this tool of medicine. It is easy to use and perfectly safe when driving a car, except at night time when it becomes too dark. This is my experience as a professional athlete and chef. Dig it! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.255.115.171 (talk) 00:18, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Possible Suporting Reasearch
Myopia seems to be caused by peripheral objects not being in focus. Could pinhole corrective lenses help by blocking peripheral light?

(I've been plagued by myopic eyesight very detrimentally. It got progressively worse and worse.)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joseph Meisenhelder (talk • contribs) 14:50, 19 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Pinhole improves vision in all refractice errors, but not fully, besides there will be two disadvantages, the things you see will appear much darker than when you use your eyegalsses and you will loose peripheral vision. therefore it is not really useful.Kiatdd (talk) 18:16, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi, the research seems to show that the peripheral field being out of focus tends to cause a growth reaction in the white part of the eyeball, causing myopia to worsen because the eyeball lengthens. So could blocking the peripheral view could stop the vision degradation feedback loop? I agree about those drawbacks of the pinhole lenses, and thanks.Joseph Meisenhelder (talk) 16:05, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion: You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 09:23, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Eye chart in focus.jpg