Being able to see microorganisms gave us a new tool to use. It has certainly affected how we consider the world around us. For example, we now know that surrounding us is a lot of germs and bacteria and before eating, we should always wash our hands. Also, after the microscope has been invented, diseases could be diagnosed. This is because we now can see what disease we’re fighting, and we can identify the organism that causes diseases. This allows us to also think of a cure for different illnesses, for example, to cure certain illnesses by the consumption of antibiotics.
TIMELINE
1st Century AD- Glass was invented by Romans
-Romans discovered that “lenses” (named lenses because they
were shaped like the seeds of a lentil) could magnify objects if it
was placed over it when experimenting with the different types
and shapes of clear glass and found one of their samples to be
thick in the middle and thin on the edges.
-An anonymous person discovered that you could direct the rays
of a sun into one of these special “lenses” and start a fire. These
lenses were then called “magnifying glasses” or “burning glasses”,
as mentioned in the writings of Roman philosophers.
13th Century AD- Lenses put into use to invent spectacles.
1500s - The invention of the earliest simple “microscopes” was only a tube with a
plate for the object at one end and, at the other, a magnifying glass with
only one power, which was about 10X. At that point of time, people found
it very interesting to look at fleas, and other tiny insects, and hence was
named “flea glasses”.
1590- Two Dutch spectacle makers, Zaccharias Janssen and his son, Hans,
started experimenting with several lenses in a tube, and discovered that
the objects near the end of the tube then appeared greatly enlarged.
1609- Galileo, a father of modern physics and astronomy, heard of these early
experiments and started experimenting on his own. He worked out the
principles of lenses and light rays, and improved the microscope with a
focusing device.
1665- Robert Hooke, an Englishman (who is sometimes called the “English
Father of Microscopy”) published a book called Micrographia, which
contained drawings of over 100 specimens, and described the use and
benefits of the microscope.
1674- Anton Van Leeuwenhoek, also known as “the father of microscopy”
invented a simple microscope, with one lens of a magnification up to 270X,
to examine bacteria, yeast, blood cells in a mere drop of water.
1830 – Joseph Jackson Lister reduces spherical aberration or the "chromatic
effect" by showing that several weak lenses used together at certain
distances gave good magnification without blurring the image. This was
the prototype for the compound microscope.
1863– Henry Clifton Sorby develops a metallurgical microscope to observe
structure of meteorites.
1872– Ernst Abbe, then research director of the Zeiss Optical Works, wrote a
mathematical formula called the "Abbe Sine Condition". His formula
provided calculations that allowed for the maximum resolution in
microscopes possible.
1903– Richard Zsigmondy developed the ultra microscope that could study
objects below the wavelength of light.
1931– Ernst Ruska co-invented the first electron microscope. (TEM)
1936- Erwin Muller invents a field emission microscope.
1938- James Hiller invents another Transmission electron microscope.
1951- Erwin Muller invents the field ion microscope and is the first to see atoms.
1955- Frits Zernike, professor of theoretical physics, receives the Nobel Prize in
Physics for his invention of phase contrast microscope.
1967- Erwin Muller adds time-of-flight spectroscopy to the field ion microscope,
making the first atom probe and allowing the chemical identification of
each individual atom.
1981-Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer invented the scanning tunneling
microscope that gives three-dimensional images of objects down to the
atomic level.
1986– Gerd Binnig, Quate, and Gerber invents the Atomic force microscope.
1988- Alfred Cerezo, Terence Godfrey, and George D.W. Smith applied a
position-sensitive detector to the atom probe, making it able to resolve
atoms in 3-D.
1988- Kingo Itaya invents the Electrochemical scanning tunneling microscope.
1991- Kelvin probe force microscope invented.
Bibliography
Bellis, Mary. “History of Microscopes (timeline).” About.com. 14 Sept. 2008
<http://inventors.about.com/od/mstartinventions/a/microscopes.htm>.
“How the light microscope evolved.” About.com. 14 Sept. 2008
<http://inventors.about.com/od/mstartinventions/a/microscope.htm>.
“History of The Microscope.” Microbus. 14 Sept. 2008
<http://www.microscope-microscope.org/basic/microscope-history.htm>.
Rayment, W. J. “A History of Microscopes.” InDepthInfo. 2008. 14 Sept. 2008
<http://www.indepthinfo.com/microscopes/history.htm>.
“Timeline of Microscope Technology.” Wikipedia. 5 Aug. 2008. 14 Sept. 2008
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_microscope_technology>.
Wikipedia. 14 Sept. 2008. 15 Sept. 2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_microscope>.
