History of Microscopes

ABSTRACT

Amicroscope (from the Ancient Greek, mikrós, ‘small’ and skopeîn, ‘to look’ or ‘see’) is an instrument used to see objects that are too small for the naked eye. The science of investigating small objects using such an instrument is called Microscopy. Microscopic means invisible to the eye unless aided by a microscope. There are many types of microscopes. The most common (and the first to be invented) is the optical microscope, which uses light to image the sample. Other major types of microscopes include the electron microscope (both the transmission electron microscope and the scanning electron microscope), the ultra-microscope, and the various types of scanning probe microscopes[1, 2]. The first microscope to be developed was the optical microscope, although the original inventor is not easy to identify. Evidence points to the first compound microscope appearing in the Netherlandsin the late 1590s, probably an invention of eye glassmakers there[3], Hans Lippershey (who developed an early telescope) and Zacharias Janssen (also claimed as the inventor of the telescope). There are other claims that the microscope and the telescope were invented by Roger Bacon in the 1200s[4], but this is not substantiated. Giovanni Faber coined the name microscope for Galileo Galilei's compound microscope in 1625[5]. (Galileo had called it the ‘occhiolino’ or ‘little eye’.)