Microscope

Microscope - is an instrument that makes an enlarged image of a small object, thus revealing details too small to be seen by the unaided eye. (Britannica)


Zacharias and Hans Janssen (1590s) - Dutch eyeglass makers that invented microscopes.


Galileo Galilei (1609) - develops a compound microscope with a convex and a concave lens. → Compound Microscope


Giovanni Faber (1625) - first coined the name ‘microscope’ for Galileo Galilei’s compound microscope.


Robert Hooke (1665) - published Micrographia, in which he coins the term ‘cells’ when describing tissue. The book includes drawings of hairs on a nettle and the honeycomb structure of cork. He uses a simple, single-lens microscope illuminated by a candle.

 








Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1676) - builds a simple microscope with one lens to examine blood, yeast and insects. He is the first to describe cells and bacteria. 

  • He wanted to examine the quality of his fabrics he was buying (Stated Clearly)

  • He started seeing tiny creatures in his beer, pond water, saliva, and etc → Animalcules

  • Light Microscope

  • Father of Microscopy

































TYPES OF MICROSCOPE 


Light Microscopes - an instrument for visualizing fine detail of an object. It does this by creating a magnified image through the use of a series of glass lenses, which first focus a beam of light onto or through an object, and convex objective lenses to enlarge the image formed.

  • Not powerful enough to see other viruses

  • Uses photons as the light source.

  • Often seen at High-School labs




Electron Microscope - a type of microscope that uses a beam of electrons to create magnified images, offering significantly higher resolution than light microscopes.

  • Ernst Ruska and Max Knoll (1931)




Scanning Probe Microscope - a broad term for various microscopy techniques that use a physical probe to scan a sample's surface and generate images. These microscopes don't use lenses; instead, they rely on a probe to interact with the surface and map the interactions, often revealing nanoscale features. 

  • Heinrich Rohrer and Gerd Bennig (1980s)



Sources: