Overview of the Institute

While not an official biography, the following is reprinted with the kind permission of the Royal Society.

by F.W. Campbell, F.R.S.†

Acknowledgments

I express my gratitude to John J. McCann, Manager, Vision Research at Polaroid Corporation, for providing me with much useful material about Edwin Land’s life and the history of the Polaroid Corporation. In particular he helped me to convey accurately the personality of Land and his family background. I am grateful to Dr John D. Mollon, Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, for providing information about the historical aspects of research in colour vision.

Professor Campbell’s untimely death occurred when this biography was nearly complete, and his work was carried on by Dr R.H.S. Carpenter with advice and assistance from Professor S. Zeki. In addition, Sarah H. Perry, of the Rowland Institute, very kindly provided the bibliography of Land’s works, and a curriculum vitae.