When Was The Microscope Developed?

Microscope is a Greek word. Micron in Greek means small and skopein means, to look at. Since ancient times, man has wanted to see tiny objects that he may be unable to see with the naked eye. A microscope is an instrument that is used for viewing objects that are too small to be seen with the naked eye. Microscopy is the science of studying objects through a microscope. The microscopes that we use today were developed about 400 years ago. They were a lot less sophisticated than the ones that are around today, but you could still learn a lot about plants and animals by looking at them using one.

The credit for the invention of the first microscope goes to Johannes and Zacharia Jansen from the Netherlands. They developed it in the year 1590.

 

In 1630, Fransesco Stulleti, published a picture of a bee that was drawn, as seen under the microscope. He discovered that the bee had compound eyes. This was the first time anyone had done this.

 

In 1663, Robert Hooke, sliced a piece of cork, and under the microscope he saw tiny rooms in it, that he called cells.

 

But it was Anton Von Leeuwenhoek, who in 1674, caused quite a stir when he saw microbes in lake water under a microscope. He also built a microscope from a small glass ball that he polished into a magnifying lens of 270x. So, the microscope was made using a single convex lens that was fixed to a metal holder and focused by using screws. He was completely devoted to his work. Among his discoveries are spermatozoa and bacteria. He also made about 400 microscopes in his lifetime.

 

In no time, there were many advances in the microscope, and in the 17^th century, a compound microscope was made. This microscope had two lenses, instead of just one where the image was magnified by one lens and then was further magnified by the other, making the microscope many times more powerful. 

 

The German Theodor Shwann(1810-82) discovered that cells are the basis of plant and animal life using an improved microscope.

 

Schwann’s work was continued by another German Rudolf Virschaw (1821-1902) who discovered a new way of looking at diseases in the human body.

 

Louis Pasteur (1822-85) a French chemist, used the microscope to wage a war against germs. He is credited with the principal of pasteurization that holds immense value even today.

 

The electron microscope was invented in the 1930s by a pair of Germans- Enrst Ruska and Max Knott. Ernst Ruska shared the Noble prize for physics in 1986, with Henrich Rohrer and Gerd Binnig. Rohrer and Binnig were awarded for the invention of the Scanning Tunneling Microscope or the STM.

The electron microscope is very powerful and though it cannot ‘see’ atoms, it can still see the breakup of molecules in a specimen. However, it has a serious problem. Because it requires a vacuum to see, no living creatures can survive in such a high vacuum and so there is no possibility of seeing how the bodies of living creatures behave under an electron microscope. 

 

Nowadays, there are microscopes used for various purposes based on their magnification capability. While low power microscopes are used by school children and beginners, high power ones are used for the purposes of education and very high powered microscopes are used in industry, research and in medicine.