"So I swallowed them!" Otto Wichterle transported contact lenses in his mouth

Otto Wichterle, a prominent Czech chemist, is celebrated for inventing soft contact lenses, which he developed using a homemade device. His innovative spirit was evident in his unconventional methods, such as testing polymerization with his tongue. Born in 1913, Wichterle faced political challenges, including imprisonment by the Gestapo for his resistance activities during WWII. After the war, he became a professor and contributed significantly to macromolecular chemistry. Despite facing political repression during the normalization period, he continued his research and eventually led the Czech Academy of Sciences after 1989. Wichterle passed away in 1998, leaving a lasting legacy in the field of chemistry.