8/19/2019 A Complete Microscope History
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A complete Microscope HistoryLike many inventions today there
are disputes in origins of the original inventors. Thesame dispute
applies to who invented the microscope.
Dating back to the rst century when glass was rst invented the
!oman"s wereinvestigating the use of glass and how viewing ob#ects
through it made the ob#ectsappear larger.
Then in the $%th &alvino D"Armate from 'taly made the
rst eye glass providing thewearer with an element of magnication to
one eye.
The earliest simple forms of magnication were magnifying
glasses usually about () *$+) and were used for inspecting tiny
insects such as ,eas hence these early magnierscalled -,ea
glasses-.
Zacharias Jansen and the frst compound microscope Then
during the $/+"s two Dutch spectacle makers 0acharias 1ansen and
his fatherHans started e)perimenting with these lenses. They put
several lenses in a tube and
made a very important discovery. The ob#ect near the end of the
tube appeared to begreatly enlarged much larger than any simple
magnifying glass could achieve by itself.
Their rst microscopes were more of a novelty than a
scientic tool since ma)imummagnication was only around /) and the
images were somewhat blurry. Although no 1ansen microscopes
survived an instrument made for Dutch royalty was described asbeing
composed of -% sliding tubes measuring $2 inches long when fully
e)tended andtwo inches in diameter-. The microscope was said to
have a magnication of %) whenfully closed and /) when fully
e)tended.
Although ordinary magnifying glasses are basically a simple
microscope when we speakof the invention of the microscope we
really mean the -compound microscope-.3ompound microscopes feature
two or more lenses connected by a hollow cylinder4tube5. The top
lens the one people look through is called the eyepiece. The bottom
lensis known as the ob#ective lens. &o today when we say
-microscope- we really mean-compound microscope-.
There is a lens called -the ob#ective- which produces a
primary magnied image. Thenthere is another lens called -the
eyepiece- or -ocular- which magnies that rst image.'n actual
practice there are several lenses used for both the ob#ective and
ocular butthe principle is that of two*stage magnication.
't is believed that 0acharias 1ansen"s father Hans helped him
build the rst microscopein $/. 0acharias wrote to a Dutch diplomat
6illiam 7oreel about the invention. 6henthe physician of the 8rench
king in9uired about the invention in the $(+"s 7oreelrecounted the
design of the microscope.
Anton van Leeuwenhoek 't was Anton van Leeuwenhoek
4$(%:*$;:%5 a Dutch draper and scientist and one of thepioneers of
microscopy who in the late $;th century became the rst man to make
anduse a real microscope.
