Final answer:
Mr. Cooper has cataracts, resulting in clouded lenses in his eyes. A surgery replacing the lenses with intraocular lenses meant for distance might still require reading glasses due to presbyopia. The power of the intraocular lenses will be less if he was previously nearsighted.
Step-by-step explanation:
Mr. Cooper is experiencing a condition known as cataracts, where the lenses in his eyes have become clouded, impairing his vision. If Mr. Cooper undergoes surgery to replace his clouded lenses with intraocular lenses (IOLs) optimized for perfect distant vision, it may not be guaranteed that he can read without glasses. This is due to presbyopia, a common vision problem associated with aging where the eye slowly loses its ability to focus on close objects. If Mr. Cooper was nearsighted before, the power of the intraocular lens would be less than his natural lens to correct the vision for distance.
In cataract formation, light that enters the eye is dispersed or diffused by the clouded lens, leading to the blurriness in vision. As people age, they may develop presbyopia, where they might need a converging (convex) lens to add power for close vision. In cases of hyperopia, or farsightedness, images are focused behind the retina, and a corrective convex lens is used to correct the focus so that images fall on the retina properly.