History of the light microskope

Antoni van Leewenhoek with his primitive microscope

Resolving power (i.e. the ability to see two points separately) of the human eye was not enough for the ancient Greeks and Romans. That's why they started using, for example, glass balls filled with water. Pliny is the first to mention glass lenses.

The Dutchman Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632 - 1723) was involved in the construction of simple microscopes, who observed plant cells, yeast etc. with a single-lens device.

The Dutchman Zacharias Janssen and his father Hans (1580 - 1638) are considered to be the inventors of the multi-lens microscope. In 1590 they invented a device with two sliding tubes, with a coupling on each side.

Galileo Galilei' (1564 - 1642) built a microscope designed essentially like a telescope, the whole device was several cubits long.

Giovanni Faber from Bamberg (1574 - 1629), personal physician of Pope Urban VIII, is considered to be the author of the word microscope.

The shape we know today was only acquired by the microscope in the first half of the 19th century thanks to the Italian naturalist Giovanni B. Amici (1786 - 1863).

External links

References

• SLONIM, Dimitrij. Optický mikroskop : Základní údaje. 1. vydání. Biologická fakulta Jihočeské univerzity v Českých Budějovicích, 2006. 

• BŘEŇ, David a Petr KULHÁNEK. Pikoškály aneb jak uvidět atom [online]. [cit. 2012-09-04]. <https://www.aldebaran.cz/bulletin/2004_27_pic.html>.