Google Doodle celebrates Czech chemist Otto Wichterle's 108th birthday

Otto Wichterle is the man who had invented soft contact lens. Today’s Doodle celebrates Wichterle’s life and legacy on his birth anniversary.

Google Doodle celebrated Czech chemist Otto Wichterle's 108th birth anniversary with a special graphic on October 27. Otto Wichterle is the man who had invented soft contact lenses. Today’s Doodle celebrates Wichterle’s life and legacy on his birth anniversary. The doodle features an animated figurine of Wichterle holding a lens on his finger.

Otto Wichterle was born on October 27 in 1913 in Prostjov, the Czech Republic (then, Austria-Hungary). As a lover of science from a very young age, Wichterle went on to earn his doctorate in organic chemistry in 1936 from the Prague Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT). He taught as a professor at his alma mater during the 1950s while developing an absorbent and transparent gel for eye implants.