Jerome Jay Wolken, a biophysicist at Carnegie Mellon University
in Pittsburgh who delved into the mysteries of sight and light
and invented a lens system that gave sight to some legally blind
people, died on May 10 at his home in Pittsburgh. He was 82. Dr.
Wolken's Light Concentrating Lens System, developed in the
1980's and used in eyeglasses, opened new vistas on medical
science, photography, astronomy and the collection of sunlight.
One of the patents for the system involves a pear-shaped lens 10
times more sensitive to light than a standard camera lens. The
system reproduced the lenses that deep-sea creatures adapted
over millions of years to see objects at depths of up to 1,500
feet in almost total darkness. The key was a special geometric
relationship between the curvature of the top and the curvature
of the bottom of the lens. Made of glass or plastic for an
eyeglass frame, the system increased the light-gathering ability
of eyes that could not send enough light to their retinas. It
was used primarily