The Evolution of the Microscope

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Microscope Research Paper

The evolution of the microscope. The first form of the microscope was a crystal that was found by someone from a long time ago. The crystal was thick in the middle, but thinner around the egdes. The crystal made things look bigger when someone looked through it. The pearson also noticed that if the sun shone through the crystal, certain things could get burnt or set on fire. They were known as "magnifiers". Magnifiers were mentioned in the writings of the two Roman philosophers, Seneca and Pliny. Apperantly, maginfiers weren't really used much until the invention of the spectacles.

The oldest actual microscope was actually just a tube with a plate at one end and a glass lens at the other end. They magnified small objets by ten diameters. These amazed people when being used for magnifing small creepy organisms, bugs, mostly fleas. Thus, giving them the name, "flea glasses".

In 1590, Zaccharias Janssen and his son Hans,were experimenting with several lenses, when they noticed that objects near the lenses appeared to be larger. This led to the creation of the compound microscope and the telescope.

In 1609, Gaileo, known as the father of modern physics and astronomy, had heard of Janssen's experiments, and decided to experiment with the lenses as well. Eventually, Gaileo made a better instrument that had a focusing device on it.

Anton van Leeuwenhoek is known as the father of microscopy. He made lenses have up to a magnification of up to 270 diameters. He did this by shining the lenses. This led to the invention of his microscopes. His microscopes allowed him to be the first pearson to ever see bacteria, yeast plants, the circulation of blood corpuscles in capillaries, and the teeming life in a dr...

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...ed yeast fungus by using the microscope.

Future of the Microscope. The future looks good for microscopes. There are newer ones being made each year. Each one having better quality and smooth functionality than past microscopes. Scientists are also trying to improve the microscopes magnification ability.

Works Cited

Bellis, Mary. “Microscope History.” About.com Inventors. About.com, 20 Dec. 2013. Web. 02 Feb. 2014

Browne, Clayton. “which Careers Use Microscopes?” Everyday Life. GlobalPost, n.d Web. 31 Jan. 2014

Hitchcock. “Result Filters.” National Center for Biotechnology Information. U.S. National Library of Medicine, n.d. Web. 03 Feb. 2014.

Sites used for information:

http://inventors.about.com/od/mstartinventions/a/microscope.htm

http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/careers-use-microscopes-4957.html

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10458129

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