As many may already know, the Braille system is a very important tool used by visually impaired people in order to express themselves, to learn and to increase their independency level. These achievements are mostly done through writing and reading a system of small raised dots, basically based on six dots numbered in a specific order, where each one or every combination of dots is associated to a letter of the alphabet. Gradually, it is used in many aspects of life, such as mathematics, music, literature, ect. Indeed, from the Canadian National Institute for the blind's web site, I recently learned where this significant invention came from. First of all, this creation had been made by Louis Braille, who was born in 1809, in Coupvray situated near Paris. His father was a shoemaker. One day, while Louis was playing in his father's atelier, he accidently poked his eye with a sharp tool mainly used to make holes in leather (called awl). After this incident, he was not able to see with his injured eye. Unfortunately, some time later, the infection spread in the other eye, which involved his entire loss of vision. Then, he went to an institute specialised for people having severe vision troubles, where it was not yet possible for the students to write; only to read from mentally bringing letters together, letters made by pressing shaped coppers wire onto a piece of paper. Later, Charles Barbier de la Serre tried to implant his French army system of night communication, but it was too complicated. However, Louis Braille inspired himself with the rejected invention, and then, he finally settled up his own system, and eventually published his method in 1829, called Braille. Then, today, his creation is known all across the world, not only by visually impaired ones, which is really great since it takes away some communication and knowledge barriers between people.
