25 Facts About Edwin Land

1.

Edwin Land invented inexpensive filters for polarizing light, a practical system of in-camera instant photography, and the retinex theory of color vision, among other things.

2.

Edwin Land was born to Jewish parents in Bridgeport, Connecticut, to Matie and Harry Land, a Russian scrap-metal dealer.

3.

Edwin Land was scolded by his father when taking apart a phonograph and he vowed that "nothing or nobody could stop me from carrying through the execution of an experiment" Edwin Land had an elder sister named Helen who had a difficult time pronouncing Edwin's name, so she called him "Din" a nickname that stuck throughout the rest of his childhood and was used among his closest friends.

4.

Edwin Land studied physics at Harvard University, more specifically, optics, but left after his freshman year, moving to New York City.

5.

Edwin Land was not associated with an educational institution and lacked the tools of a proper laboratory, making this a difficult endeavor, so he would sneak into a laboratory at Columbia University late at night to use their equipment.

6.

Edwin Land availed himself of the New York Public Library to scour the scientific literature for prior work on polarizing substances.

7.

Edwin Land's breakthrough came when he realized that, instead of attempting to grow a large single crystal of a polarizing substance, he could manufacture a film with millions of micron-sized polarizing crystals that were coaxed into perfect alignment with each other.

8.

Edwin Land returned to Harvard University after developing the polarizing film, but he did not finish his studies or receive a degree.

9.

Edwin Land further developed and produced the sheet polarizers under the Polaroid trademark.

10.

Edwin Land asked why she could not see the picture her father just took of her, within an hour, he already had the idea for the SX-70 Polaroid camera.

11.

When Edwin Land conceived of an idea, he would experiment and brainstorm until the problem was solved with no breaks of any kind.

12.

Edwin Land needed to have food brought to him and to be reminded to eat.

13.

Edwin Land once wore the same clothes for eighteen consecutive days while solving problems with the commercial production of polarizing film.

14.

Edwin Land was a true visionary; he saw things differently from other people, which is what led him to the idea of instant photography.

15.

Edwin Land was a brilliant, driven man who did not spare himself and who enjoyed working with equally driven people.

16.

Edwin Land was a frequent advisor to President Dwight D Eisenhower on photographic reconnaissance matters.

17.

Edwin Land contributed to the design of the plane with Kelly Johnson.

18.

Also in this decade, Edwin Land first discovered a two-color system for projecting the entire spectrum of hues with only two colors of projecting light.

19.

Edwin Land often made technical and management decisions based on what he felt was right as both a scientist and a humanist, much to the chagrin of Wall Street and his investors.

20.

Edwin Land gave photographers free access to these cameras in return for some of the prints they produced.

21.

Edwin Land resigned from his role as Presidential Advisor during Nixon's Watergate scandal in 1973.

22.

Edwin Land was one of the names in Nixon's "political opponents".

23.

Edwin Land died on March 1,1991, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the age of 81.

24.

Edwin Land himself disliked being written about, wanting to leave behind a legacy of published scientific work, rather than a cult of personality, and so, on his death, Edwin Land's family had a laboratory associate shred his personal papers and notes, a task that would take three years to complete.

25.

Edwin Land is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.