who was the inventor of microscope?

Answer 1

A timeline covering the history of microscopes.

The definition of a microscope: An instrument for viewing objects that are too small to be seen easily by the naked eye.

Circa 1000AD – The first vision aid was invented (inventor unknown) called a reading stone. It was a glass sphere that magnified when laid on top of reading materials.

Circa 1284 - Italian, Salvino D'Armate is credited with inventing the first wearable eye glasses.

1590 – Two Dutch eye glass makers, Zaccharias Janssen and son Hans Janssen experimented with multiple lenses placed in a tube. The Janssens observed that viewed objects in front of the tube appeared greatly enlarged, creating both the forerunner of the compound microscope and the telescope.

1665 – English physicist, Robert Hooke looked at a sliver of cork through a microscope lens and noticed some "pores" or "cells" in it.

1674 – Anton van Leeuwenhoek built a simple microscope with only one lens to examine blood, yeast, insects and many other tiny objects. Leeuwenhoek was the first person to describe tiny cells and bacteria invented and he invented new methods for grinding and polishing microscope lenses that allowed for curvatures providing magnifications of up to 270 diameters, the best available lenses at that time.

18th century – Technical innovations improved microscopes, leading to microscopy becoming popular among scientists. Lenses combining two types of glass reduced the "chromatic effect" the disturbing halos resulting from differences in refraction of light.

1830 – Joseph Jackson Lister reduces spherical aberration or the "chromatic effect" by showing that several weak lenses used together at certain distances gave good magnification without blurring the image. This was the prototype for the compound microscope.

1872 – Ernst Abbe, then research director of the Zeiss Optical Works, wrote a mathematical formula called the "Abbe Sine Condition". His formula provided calculations that allowed for the maximum resolution in microscopes possible.

1903 – Richard Zsigmondy developed the ultramicroscope that could study objects below the wavelength of light. He won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1925.

1932 – Frits Zernike invented the phase-contrast microscope that allowed for the study of colorless and transparent biological materials for which he won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1953.

1931 – Ernst Ruska co-invented the electron microscope for which he won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1986. An electron microscope depends on electrons rather than light to view an object, electrons are speeded up in a vacuum until their wavelength is extremely short, only one hundred-thousandth that of white light. Electron microscopes make it possible to view objects as small as the diameter of an atom.

1981 – Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer invented the scanning tunneling microscope that gives three-dimensional images of objects down to the atomic level. Binnig and Rohrer won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1986. The powerful scanning tunneling microscope is the strongest microscope to date.

Answer 2

During the 1st century AD (year 100), glass had been invented and the Romans were looking through the glass and testing it. They experimented with different shapes of clear glass and one of their samples was thick in the middle and thin on the edges. They discovered that if you held one of these “lenses” over an object, the object would look larger.

It is impossible to say who invented the compound microscope. Dutch spectacle-makers Hans Janssen and his son Zacharias Janssen are often said to have invented the first compound microscope in 1590, but this was a declaration by Zacharias Janssen himself halfway the 17th century. The date is certainly not likely, as it has been shown that Zacharias Janssen actually was just about born in 1590. Another favorite for the title of 'inventor of the microscope' was Galileo Galilei. He developed an occhiolino or compound microscope with a convex and a concave lens in 1609. Christiaan Huygens, another Dutchman, developed a simple 2-lens ocular system in the late 1600's that was achromatically corrected and therefore a huge step forward in microscope development. The Huygens ocular is still being produced to this day, but suffers from a small field size, and the eye relief is uncomfortably close compared to modern widefield oculars.

Answer 3

The first useful microscope was developed in the Netherlands between 1590 and 1608. There is almost as much confusion about the inventor as about the dates. Three different eyeglass makers have been given credit for the invention. The possible inventors are Hans Lippershey (who also developed the first real telescope), Hans Janssen, and his son, Zacharias.

Answer 4

The first useful microscope was developed in the Netherlands between 1590 and 1608. There is almost as much confusion about the inventor as about the dates. Three different eyeglass makers have been given credit for the invention. The possible inventors are Hans Lippershey (who also developed the first real telescope), Hans Janssen, and his son, Zacharias.

Answer 5

Hi. The inventor of the first microscope was Zacharias Jansenn

Answer 6

I like to give credit to Van Leeuwenhoek (Dutch), who first used a fixed convex lens to study small objects according to scentific method.

Why him, you ask? Mostly because I remember studying him in grade school, but also because I'm of Dutch ancestry, myself.

Btw, the compound microscope was developed by later Dutch and English scientists.

Answer 7

Anton Von Leuwenhock

Answer 8

The Inventor Of Microscope

Answer 9

It was not one man, but a process of development, involving many people over many centuries, that led to the microsope as we know it today. If you want to know the whole story, have a look at this website: http://www.microscope-microscope.org/basic/microscope-history.htm

Answer 10

Antoni van Leeuwenhoek in the 1670's