Key developments in history of the Microscope

By gmans
  • Jan 1, 1300

    Grinding Lenses in the 14th Century

    Specticles are designed to imrpove eyesight. Developed in Italy.
  • Jan 1, 1500

    Flea Glasses

    After the invention of eye glasses.

  • Zaccaria and Hans create the first Microscope

    They created it by placing two lenses in a tube. This type of microscope works by bending light rays from one lens to another, enlarging an object multiple times.

  • Anton van Leeuwenhoek looks at blood

    Used one lense to look at objects such as blood, insects and other objects. He was the first to describe cells and bacteria. He magnified specimens up to 279 times.

  • 18th Century, Microscopes become easier to handle

    It was also discovered that combining two types of glass resulted in reduced chromatic effect.

  • Jackson Lister reduces the problem with spherical aberration

    He proved that several weak lenses used together at certain distances gave good magnification without bluring the image.

  • Ernst Abbe formulates a mathematical theory correlating resolution to the wavelength of light

    He made calculations of maximum resoloution possible in microscopes.

  • Richard Zsigmondy develops the ultramicroscope and is able to study objects below the wavelength of light

  • Frits Zernike invents the phase-contrast microscope that allows the study of colorless and transparent biological materials

    Frits Zernike invents the phase-contrast microscope that allows the study of colorless and transparent biological materials

  • Ernst Ruska and Max Knott develops the electron microscope

    The ability to use electrons in microscopy greatly improves the resolution and greatly expands the borders of exploration.

  • Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer invent the scanning tunneling microscope that gives three-dimensional images of objects down to the atomic level.