WHO INVENTED THE SIMPLE MICROSCOPE?

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It was, however, Anton van Leeuwenhoek of Holland (1632-1723), who made the greatest contribution to the refinement and use of the microscope. After working with crude magnifiers for counting threads in the fabric sold at the store where he worked as a young man, Van Leeuwenhoek learned how to grind and polish glass lenses that allowed the greatest magnifications ever seen at that time, approximately a magnification of 270 times the apparent size to the naked eye. Van Leeuwenhoek used his new instrument to study and make the first scientific descriptions of bacteria, yeast cells, many of the organisms found in common pond water, and even the circulation of blood cells in tiny capillary vessels.

The basic design and use of optical microscopes has remained the same in principle since those early discoveries. While lenses have improved, and various light sources have allowed smaller and smaller objects to be viewed up to 1250 times their apparent size (compared to Van Lueewenhoek’s 270 times), the basic design of a tube and lenses remains the same in the most modern optical microscopes as it was in the earliest. This instrument remains an essential tool for modern day researchers, industrial technologists, forensic scientists, all sorts of biologists, and anyone else who gets to increase their understanding of our physical world by looking through a microscope.