The record-breaking -108.00 diopter myopia lenses (2016)

I don't think it's a Fresnel lens. Fresnel lenses have rather obvious rings and have poor optical qualities for most applications besides light sources, cheap slide projectors, and magnifying glasses.

Here, the "lens-within-a-lens" effect that you see is because, generally speaking, myopia lenses shrink the image. But this lens is so extreme that the image is shrunk into a small bubble in the middle. The ring-like structures around this bubble are due to internal reflections within the lens.

The article says that they're biconcave, which means that the thinnest part of the lens is in the centre (similar to a red blood cell). For high-myopia lenses, they often remove the lens material away from the centre to limit the maximum thickness at the expense of reducing the field of view. The resulting surface is usually left unpolished, but the lens underneath will still bend light, resulting in the circular patterns you mentioned. In this case a very large amount of material is removed as they would be impossible to use with a conventional frame otherwise. The alternative would be to use glasses with very small lenses.

I recently had laser eye surgery and subsequently re-evaluated my relationship with glasses over the previous 15 years — obviously I was frustrated enough to get the surgery but hadn’t considered their impact holistically over my life.

My feeling is that glasses are annoying from -1, but their impact is tolerated as being able to see is a net gain.

If I had known of their existence beforehand I might have sought out Ortho-K lenses — you wear them whilst you sleep and then take them out for corrected vision during the day. They are more expensive than surgery in the long term (10+ years), but they are less invasive and might be something worth considering.

I got pissed off at wearing glasses and contact lenses for 30 or so years. Things like fear of losing the glasses, transporting liquids everywhere you go and requiring some sort of sanitation. It's not compatible with an active lifestyle IMO.

I wasn't eligible for laser treatment so a few months ago I opted for what is essentially cataract surgery (Refractive Lens Exchange). I don't regret it, the freedom is great. Vision definitely isn't 20/20, and things look funny under certain lighting conditions, and your short-range vision is destroyed since your eye can no longer physically focus, but I'm glad I did it. I seem to have got lucky in that I don't need galsses for up-close stuff like looking at a monitor.

I don’t think that changes how the effect works though, just reduces the thickness of the glasses.

I’m very much not expert at this, I just help a child with poor eyesight, and every upgrade that reduces weight and thickness is much appreciated.

You can get lenses around -20 even from Zenni optical. They are pretty routine.

Thanks, those don't load for me on mobile.