Who Invented The Microscope? History Of Microscope - Biography of Zacharias Janssen

Discoverer Microscope - Zacharias Janssen. Zacharias Janssen is a Dutch scientist, born in 1580 in the Netherlands, and died in 1638 at the age of 58 years. His most famous invention is the first microscope used to see objects that are very small in size and difficult to reach when using the eye only. The discovery of this microscope greatly influenced the development of science and not a few great discoveries that are very useful for the world civilization is examined using a microscope.

In 1590, together with his father, he succeeded in creating a microscope using convex and concave lenses to enlarge the appearance of objects of very small size. The first focusing tuning mechanism for the microscope was made and refined by Campini, an Italian scientist, in 1668.

Not only Zacharias Janssen is interested in making this microscope, but the invention of the microscope at that time encouraged other scientists, such as Galileo Galilei (Italy), to make the same tool. Even Galileo claimed his dragon as the first creator who had made this device in 1610. Galileo 

Microscope

In 1609 Galileo completed the making of his microscope and his microscope was named after the inventor, Galileo's microscope. This type of microscope uses optical lenses, so it is called an optical microscope. Microscopes assembled from optical lenses have limited ability to increase the size of the object. This is due to the diffraction limit of light determined by the wavelength of the light. Theoretically, the wavelength of this light is only up to about 200 nanometers. For that reason, this optical-based lens microscope can not observe sizes below 200 nanometers. 

Microscope Antony Van Leeuwenhoek

The development of the microscope did not stop there, a Dutch national named Antony Van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) continues to develop microscopic enlargement. Antony Van Leeuwenhoek is actually not a professional researcher or scientist. The profession is actually a 'wine terster' in the city of Delf, Netherlands. He used to use a magnifying glass to observe the fibers on the fabric. But his great curiosity about the universe made him one of the inventors of microbiology. 

Antony Van Leewenhoekusing a very simple microscope to observe river water, rain water, saliva, feces and so forth. He is attracted by the many small, moving objects that are invisible to the common eye. He calls these moving objects 'animalcules' which he says are very small animals. 

This discovery makes it more enthusiastic in observing these objects by further improving the microscope. This is done by stacking more lenses and installing them on silver plates. Leewenhoek finally made 250 microscopes that can enlarge 200-300 times.

Leewenhoek carefully recorded his observations and sent them to the British Royal Society. One of his first letters on September 7, 1674, he described the existence of a very small animal now known as protozoa. Between 1963-1723 he wrote over 300 letters reporting his observations. One of them is the shape of stem, coccus and spiral which is now known as bacteria. These discoveries make the world aware of the existence of a very small life form that eventually gave birth to microbiology.

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