Interpreted transparency: Do you see what I see?

My daughter teasing me on my birthday: One candle on the cake+these googles=See how old you are Mum!

My fascination with glass started, at the age of eight, when I got my first pair of glasses. What a fantastic tool. Suddenly I was able to see clearly, and read!

The notion that the shape of things could be altered by altering the angle of the frame while looking through the glass was an amazing discovery. I had a lot of fun with my new toy, through which I could make my teacher pull faces and look funny. At the time I had of course no idea of how, or why. Now I know that I had stumbled on the optical power of glass.