Simple Microscopes

Microscope

admin — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 08:05:21 +0000

This article tells of the development of the instrument microscope from its simplest structure to the more complex structure today. The article tells that the microscope originated in the 15th century. It is this instrument that revealed the microscopic world. The article explains that these instruments played such a crucial role in helping to explain the relationship between microorganisms and disease. These instruments have even become symbols of scientific medicine. The earliest microscopes used a single lens. This very simple structure has lead to a lot of discoveries in the microscopic world. It is said that the credit for making the first compound microscope is given to Zacharias Janssen of Middleburg, Holland. He was known to be a maker of Dutch eyeglasses and he is likewise an inventor. It was in 1595 when Janssen invented the microscope. It has become a controversy because some believe that it could be his father, Hans Janssen who made the first one. Many believe that Zach only was responsible for its production. (more…)

The present

admin — Sat, 26 May 2007 18:30:00 +0000

We often think of a microscope as a large and heavy metal object with milled knobs, wheels, gears, racks, pinions and stainless steel and with complex arrangements of lenses that take an invisible object and reproduce it as a room-sized image through the might of modern technology. Well, yes, that is how we do think of microscopes today. Like motor-cars or video sets or automobiles, a modern microscope has to look impressive if it is to perform its task properly. (more…)

Simple truths

admin — Sat, 26 May 2007 18:15:43 +0000

Remember that Leeuwenhoek’s microscopes were not the first. That is an important point to emphasize at the outset. Many descriptions of microscopes show the simple type of instrument he made, as it were, at the base of the microscopes family tree, so that the complicated contractions of more recent years spring from these simple beginning. But that is an error.

Microscopes were in an existence for perhaps half a century before Leeuwenhoek made his first example. What is more, the recognizable modern shape of microscope, with a body tube, an objective lens near the object and an eyepiece for viewing, was already in existence before Leeuwenhoek went to school. The point of interest is not that his microscope was earlier, just that it was better.

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Microscopes that shaped history

admin — Sat, 26 May 2007 18:05:42 +0000

Twenty-six of Leeuwenhoek’s microscopes are very likely still in existence, lying in a dusty attic in London , unrecognized. Of the nine known to be associated with his name, one was discovered a few years ago in a discarded box of laboratory oddments. Other microscopes of the greatest historic importance have turned up in cupboards, in private collections, and one was returned to a learned society in London after being bought up in a house sale in Dorset.

There is every reason to rehabilitate the simple microscopes. As historic relics they have a fascination of their own, but as an overlooked facet of scientific history their interest is paramount. In fact there is a further theme of the discussion, there is good reason to believe that this much-misunderstood, widely ignored instrument has a more important niche in our history than even these considerations might suggest.

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How did it begin?

admin — Sat, 26 May 2007 17:55:55 +0000

The simple microscope can be traced existent at around 1700 in Delft, Netherlands, having utilized by a draper named Leeuwenhoek. His name, as it has come down to us, is Antony van Leeuwenhoek, but he was christened ‘Thonis’, and acquired the ‘van’ as an affectation in 1685 when he was fifty-two. He had a normal secondary education, was apprenticed to a draper in Amsterdam, and lived for his adult years in the pleasant and quiet city of Delft , much of which has changed relatively little since Leeuwenhoek’s time.

Oh his own, and in his spare time, he founded the science of microbiology. It was Leeuwenhoek who drew cells and, with them, the cell nucleus, it was he who documented spermatozoa; it was Leeuwenhoek who discovered the microbe world and first observed bacteria. The kind of microscope he used was hand-made, sometimes being fashioned from metals he refined himself and then beat into shape.

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What is a Simple Microscope?

admin — Thu, 24 May 2007 06:31:30 +0000

The earliest simple microscope from its key word simple meaning, easy to use, not complicated. Since it had only one lens and is called Simple microscope. Unlike compound microscope that contain two or more lenses. Simple microscopes are magnifying glasses or its other term, hand glass. It was the first simple microscope used by Anton van Leeuwenhoek that he discovered earliest simple microscopic lens. The lens produce magnified images of small or minute objects that cannot be seen by the naked eye. They have one glass lens that focuses light. The magnifier or hand lens in a simple microscope is usually a round piece of transparent material and has ground thinner at the edge than at the center which can form an enlarge image of a tiny object. The image is received by direct imaging and electronic processing or a combination of both methods. (more…)