Objects & Inventions
Microscope
A microscope is an instrument that enlarges or resolves details too small to examine clearly with unaided human vision.
A microscope is an instrument used to observe structures too small to examine clearly with the unaided eye. Optical microscopes use visible light and lenses to form enlarged images. Other kinds, including electron microscopes, use different physical systems to reveal much smaller features.
The invention of the earliest microscope is not credited with certainty, although Zacharias Janssen is often associated with an early compound design around 1600. During the seventeenth century, Robert Hooke and Antonie van Leeuwenhoek used improved instruments to reveal previously unseen structures and microorganisms.
Quick facts
- A compound optical microscope uses more than one lens to magnify an image.
- One of the earliest compound microscopes is commonly associated with Zacharias Janssen around 1600.
- Early microscopes could enlarge objects roughly twenty to thirty times.
- Antonie van Leeuwenhoek made powerful simple microscopes using carefully ground single lenses.
- Microscopy became essential to research on cells, tissues, microorganisms, and disease.
A surprising fact
Some of the most important early microscopic observations were made with simple one-lens instruments rather than compound microscopes.