History Microscope

The History of the Microscope

admin — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 10:09:47 +0000

The microscope has helped us in seeing what used to be unknown to our predecessors. Just how were our historical ancestors able to come up with such a powerful optical science tool? And who in history are we to thank for being the father of modern microscopy? This is the question that students will be asking their teachers and parents when they are first given their own kids microscopes to begin experimenting with.

The beginning of the history of the microscope started in the unrecorded past with a piece of transparent crystal that the ancient people picked up and looked through. As early as 63 A.D. gem-cutters may have used glasses filled with water as optical magnifiers. Roman historian Seneca wrote about reading small letters with the use of a glass globe filled with water. Seneca, Pliny the Elder and other Roman philosophers also mentioned magnifiers and “burning glasses” in their ancient writings.

In a publication dated 1052, an Arabian physician named Alhagen described the use of two lenses to enlarge images. In Ibn al-Haytham’s Book of Optics written between 1011 and 1021 was Abba Ibn Firnas’s corrective lenses. This was believed to lay the foundation for research on the optical magnifying glass. (more…)

The History of the Microscope

admin — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 08:58:29 +0000

Lenses are most important part of the microscope. In history, these began as clear convex-shaped glasses that people used mainly to look at small things. The most popular use magnifying glasses had was as vision aids, where people placed them on top of reading materials to make them easier to read. In the late 1200s an Italian names Salvino D’Armate was said to have invented eyeglasses, the first time magnifying lenses were placed in frames and could be worn around by people.

Three hundred years later, the father and son Zaccharias and Hans Janssen began experimenting with the eye glasses that they were making in their shop. They placed several lenses in a tube and discovered that objects look larger seen through the end of the tube with the help of the primitive lenses. This became the first model of both the compound microscope and the telescope. (more…)

Types of Electron Microscopes

admin — Thu, 24 May 2007 05:03:58 +0000

The first electron microscope prototype was built in 1933 by the German engineers Ernst Ruska and Max Knoll. It was based on the ideas and discoveries of French physicist Louis de Broglie. Although it was primitive and not fit for practical use, the instrument was still capable of magnifying objects by four hundred times. Siemens director Reinhold Rudenburg had patented the electron microscope in 1931, and by the year 1937 Siemens began developing the electron microscope, even though he has no research on electron microscope, with the help of funding Ruska and Bondo von Borries to develop the instrument, he also employed Ruska’s brother Helmut to work on applications, particularly with biological materials. The first TEM was built by Siemens in 1939, and the first practical microscope was built at the University of Toronto in 1938, by Eli Franklin Burton and students Cecil Hall, James Hillier and Albert Prebus. Although modern microscopes like electron microscopes can magnify objects up to two million times, they are still based upon Ruska’s prototype and his correlation between wavelength and resolution. The modern electron microscope is an integral part of many laboratories. Researchers use it to examine biological materials such as cell and microorganism, a variety of large molecules, metals and crystalline structures, medical biopsy samples, and the characteristic of various surfaces. (more…)

Photography

admin — Thu, 24 May 2007 05:03:08 +0000

Photography- It is the process of making pictures by means of capturing light on a light sensitive medium, such as sensor or film. Light patterns emitted from objects are recorded onto a storage chip through time exposure. It is the process done through chemical, mechanical, or digital devices known as CAMERAS. The word comes from the Greek words phos “light”, and graphis “stylus”, “paintbrush” or graphe, together meaning “drawing with light” or “representation by means of lines” or “drawing.” Traditionally the product of photography has been called a photograph. The term photo is an abbreviation; many people also call them pictures. In digital photography, the term image has begun to replace photograph. Modern photography can be traced to the 1820s. The first permanent photograph was an image produced in 1826 by the French inventor Nicephore Niepce. The picture took eight hours to expose, so he went trying to find out a new process. Together with Louis Daguerre, they experimented with silver compounds based on a Johann Heinrich Schultz discovery in 1724 that a silver and chalk mixture darkens when exposed to light. (more…)

The Founders of the Microscope

admin — Thu, 24 May 2007 05:02:10 +0000

Microscope in the earliest development, since the sense of sight is one of the most vital senses in our life because it makes us see everything and it aids information about the environment that we are apart of. To trace back in our ancient world, our ancestors started to develop instruments like microscope,telescope,magnifying glass,and spectacles. “The Founders of the Microscope” The one who founded the microscope was the Janssen’s Family. Hans Janssen the father of Zacharias Janssen made the first microscope, but it was given to Zach in, Middleburg, Holland, around the year 1595, and Zach took over for the production. First compound microscopes was simply a tube with lenses and the magnification ranges from 3x to 9x, depending on the size of the diaphragm opening. (more…)

Microscopes And The Study Of Life And Cell

admin — Thu, 24 May 2007 05:01:17 +0000

MICROSCOPES AND THE STUDY OF LIFE AND CELL. It was soon discovered that not only were large organisms made up of huge numbers of tiny cells- multicellular organisms, but tiny organisms existed made up of as few as a single cell unicellular organisms or single-celled organism, and it was found that in the unicellular realm, there was a basic either-or difference in organisms: theirs might be a cell with a nucleus, like the cells found in multicellular organisms eukaryotes or a cell without a nucleus, assumed to be simpler and primitive prokaryotes and not found in multicelled forms. The unicellular level, the distinctions between animals and plants were less reliable. It is not unusual to find unicellular organisms that are mobile and food-gathering like animals but which are also green and photosynthetic. (more…)

Compound Microscopes

admin — Thu, 24 May 2007 04:59:17 +0000

“The Pioneer’s Invention” during the 1st century A.D-year 100, the Romans was experimenting through the glass and testing it. They experiment different shapes of clear glass and one of their samples was thick in the middle and thin on the edges. They discovered that if you look to one of this lens over an object, the object will look larger. Lenses comes from the Latin word lentil (lentil bean), this early lenses were called “The MAGNIFIERS OR BURNING GLASS” it can also focus the rays of the sun with one of the special glasses and start a fire. This magnifying glass had one power, usually 6x-10x, and it is very interesting because you can see the small insects and fleas called the “flea glasses”. The magnifying glass or simple microscopes reached its highest state of perfection, because the image produced by such a magnifier, held close to the observer’s eye, appears as if it were on the same side of the lens as the object itself. Such an image, seen as if it were ten inches from the eye, is known as a “virtual image” and cannot be captured on film. (more…)