Inventor of Microscope

Dutchmen Hans and Zacharias Jansenn: Early Microscopists

admin — Fri, 18 May 2007 06:49:48 +0000

The Dutch people who have a history and tradition in inventing and discovery gave a great contribution to science. They were the pioneers of microscopy. Their phenomenal contribution was producing the small but powerful lenses with which they probe at the frontier of the micro world. The first compound microscope was invented in 1590 by the father and son Dutchmen Hans and Zacharias Janssen. Their invention would have a single glass lens for the objective and another single glass lens for the eyepiece as seen in their own microscope diagram.

Hooke vs Leeuwenhoek

admin — Fri, 18 May 2007 06:45:14 +0000

The microscopes of the two inventors: Robert Hooke and Anthony van Leeuwenhoek had been imitated and became about equally popular for many years. However, both microscopes too presented difficulties in terms of their microscopes and microscopy usage and offered distinct disadvantages. The compound microscope of Robert Hooke, the double lenses and the long, dark tube caused distortions and lighting problems. On the other hand, the simple microscope of Anthony van Leeuwenhoek, inventor of the microscope was hand held and tiring to use. Finally, sometime around 1830, when glass making and lens grinding were perfected, the compound microscope with its two lenses won out as the definitive model. The microscope with the two lenses was the more efficient one.

Anthony Van Leeuwenhoek: Microscope Inventor

admin — Fri, 18 May 2007 06:43:41 +0000

Born in Holland in 1632, Anthony van Leeuwenhoek was a successful linen merchant. During those times Robert Hooke devoted himself to magnifying part of visible, familiar things, or what we call microscopy. He never suspected that on a still smaller scale there existed forms of life that were as yet invisible and unknown. Yes, this discovery belonged to Leeuwenhoek with the use of his microscope. With his line of business, Leeuwenhoek always had to look closely at many types of cloth fibers under the microscope, which may have led to his passion for exploring the secret universe of tiny objects and microscopy. Since making lenses was his hobby, and he lived up to the age of ninety one, this left him many years to hone his skill. He was able to grind small beads of glass or clear quartz crystal into magnifiers so powerful that experts nowadays estimate his best instruments must have enlarged things about three hundred times. (more…)

Robert Hooke: Microscope Inventor

admin — Fri, 18 May 2007 06:43:06 +0000

An Englishman named Robert Hooke, born in 1635, was one of the early inventors of the microscope and microscopy. While most of his contemporaries, or the other early inventors of the microscope, were busy fitting glass lenses into telescopes for gazing distant objects, Hooke, an inventor of the microscope and a member of Royal Society for the Promotion of Natural Knowledge, was pretty occupied in devising microscopes for microscopy and for looking at small objects in close hands. (more…)