Polaroid founder dead at age 81 ( march 1991; b. 1910 )
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) -Edwin H. Land, a shy Harvard dropout who invented instant photography and founded Polaroid Corp., died Friday after a long illness. He was 81. The exact cause of death was not disclosed.
Land, who founded Polaroid in 1937 and the Rowland Institute For Science Inc. in 1980, introduced the first instant camera in 1947, starting the era of 60-second photography. In an oft-told anecdote, the idea struck Land on a family vacation when he took a photograph of his 3-year-old daughter and she asked why she had to wait to see the picture.
During his tenure at Polaroid, the firm introduced instant color photography in 1963 and made a major break-through in 1972 with the SX-70 system, which produced a vivid picture outside the camera.
Instant X-rays, Polaroid sunglasses, a 3-D movie projector and even a glare-reducing goggles for dogs were among the more than 500 patents Land collected in his lifetime, second only to Thomas Edison.
Polaroid, a trademark for the polarizing sheets that Land invented, was coined by Smith College art scholar Clarence Kennedy, with whom Land worked in the 1930s in producing 3-D photographs of Renaissance sculpture.
"Land inspired everyone he worked with," Polaroid President I. MacAllister Booth said in a statement. "He taught us new science, new industry and new way of working, which together continue to form the very foundation of Polaroid Corp.

Leyden note:
Polaroid 'film' ( filters ) is the name given to the plastic material used for sunglass lenses / filters -- but has no direct connection to Polaroid Photographic film. The latter owes its name to the corporation Land then founded to 'develop' ( pun ) all of his ideas. Until the 1970's ( ? ) the name of the famous camera was the Polaroid-Land camera.
One story i heard said he discovered how to make Polaroid filters when he was about 22.
3 / 9s / 96

source:
cobb & darling: wanna bet? science challenges to fool you lothrop, lee & shepard books; ny 1993 

TIME OUT

Wanna bet you can make time disappear
The setup: To do this trick you need a pair of polarized sunglasses and a watch with a liquid crystal display (LCD). Put the sunglasses on and look at the time display. Slowly rotate the watch and the numbers will magically disappear. Keep turning and they'll reappear again.

The fix:
Light travels in all directions. Polarized sunglasses are filters that pass only light that's traveling in a vertical direction. Most glare is polarized light that travels horizontally. It is stopped by the vertical polarized lenses, which are at a right angle to it. The top of a liquid crystal display has a polarizer on it. You can't see the numbers on the watch when your polarized glasses are aligned at right angles to the watch's polarizer. Substitute an LCD calculator for the watch and instead of killing time you can eliminate math.

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 Friday October 12, 2001 -  2:10 PM ET (AP)
 
Key Dates in Polaroid's History
 
-1937: Edwin H. Land founds Polaroid and develops products including day glasses and a polarizing desk lamp, 11 years after dropping out of Harvard University after his freshman year to study light polarization.
 
-1947: Land introduces instant imaging at the Optical Society of America meeting in New York. A year later, the company introduces its first instant camera and film in Boston. The camera retails for $89.50.
 
-1963: Polaroid introduces instant color film and Model 100 folding pack camera, the first to use transistorized electronics to manage shutter speed for timing.
 
-1972: Company introduces the SX-70, the first Polaroid camera that ejects a print from the camera, which then develops when exposed to light.
 
-1983: Polaroid boasts 13,402 employees, $1.3 billion in sales, and more than 1,000 patents. The company introduces the Polaroid Palette, a computer image recorder, and begins selling blank videocassette tapes.
 
-1991: Land dies at age 81. The company produces its 1 billionth pack of instant film and is paid $925 million by Eastman-Kodak to settle a patent infringement lawsuit.
 
-1995: Gary T. DiCamillo is hired as first outsider to head Polaroid. Company lays off 2,500 workers amid concerns of slumping sales. Some stockholders worry it is ignoring instant imaging, its cash cow, in favor of unproven technology.
 
-1997: Polaroid shares briefly trade at more than $60.
 
-February 2001: Announces 950 job cuts along with plan to sell real estate assets and restructure company to develop instant imaging business.
 
-June 2001: Polaroid cuts 2,000 jobs, or 25 percent of work force.
 
-July 2001: The company announces it will miss bond payments and is exploring a possible merger or sale, despite receiving a reprieve from lenders.
 
-Oct. 12, 2001: Company files for Chapter 11 restructuring. Shares, which had been halted, last traded at 28 cents.