Land had originally created the technology for a 3D photography reconnaissance system for the US military, the first time his polarizing filters were combined with photography. Crowds at the 1939 World’s Fair shrieked with delight as they watched the first 3D movie wearing glasses with specially developed Polaroid lenses. Building off of Land’s polarization process, the two men created hundreds of commercial products that served various industries including automobiles, the military, eyewear and entertainment. In 1937, the laboratory was incorporated as the Polaroid Corporation. Following his breakthrough in New York, Land returned to Cambridge and opened a commercial lab in partnership with a former Harvard professor. In 1929, Land filed a patent application for his new polarizing sheet it would be the first of more than 500 patents he would receive before dying in 1991. As the lacquer dried, the crystals retained their orientation, and the result was a polarizing sheet that was thin, transparent, and pliable. He then pulled a sheet of celluloid (a thin, clear plastic) through this solution to make a continuous sheet of crystals. An entry on the American Chemical Society website describes the process: created fine polarizing crystals, suspended them in liquid lacquer, and aligned them using an electromagnet. In a 1972 feature in LIFE, Land described his mindset while in the throes of research that seemed to recall his late adolescent pursuits, “If the problem is clearly very important, then time dwindles and all sorts of resources which have evolved to help you handle complex situations seem to fall into place letting you solve problems you never dreamed you could solve.”īuilding off of a series of failed polarization experiments previously conducted by a British chemist, Land developed the first commercially viable sheet polarizer two years after leaving Harvard. With limited means at his disposal and no academic affiliation, Land relied on resources at the New York Public Library and snuck into empty labs at Columbia University to conduct experiments. Before the end of his first semester, Land left Cambridge and moved to New York City to pursue his optical research. His manifest focus on identifying and solving scientific challenges, which some critics would later describe as obsessive, proved to be a defining characteristic of Land’s personality. A brilliant student, Land entered Harvard in 1926 but soon discovered higher education to be a distraction from his personal interests and research. Land was fascinated by light, specifically wave polarization and its inherent scientific possibilities.
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