Who invented the microscope?
A complete Microscope History

Like many inventions today there are disputes in origins of the original inventors. The same dispute applies to who invented the microscope.

Dating back to the first century when glass was first invented, the Roman's were investigating the use of glass and how viewing objects through it, made the objects appear larger.

Then, in the 13th Salvino D'Armate from Italy, made the first eye glass, providing the wearer with an element of magnification to one eye.

The earliest simple forms of magnification were magnifying glasses, usually about 6x - 10x and were used for inspecting tiny insects such as fleas, hence these early magnifiers called "flea glasses".

Zacharias Jansen and the first compound microscope

Then, during the 1590's, two Dutch spectacle makers, Zacharias Jansen and his father Hans started experimenting with these lenses. They put several lenses in a tube and made a very important discovery. The object near the end of the tube appeared to be greatly enlarged, much larger than any simple magnifying glass could achieve by itself.

Their first microscopes were more of a novelty than a scientific tool since maximum magnification was only around 9x and the images were somewhat blurry. Although no Jansen microscopes survived, an instrument made for Dutch royalty was described as being composed of "3 sliding tubes, measuring 18 inches long when fully extended, and two inches in diameter". The microscope was said to have a magnification of 3x when fully closed, and 9x when fully extended.

Although ordinary magnifying glasses are basically a simple microscope, when we speak of the invention of the microscope, we really mean the "compound microscope". Compound microscopes feature two or more lenses, connected by a hollow cylinder (tube). The top lens, the one people look through, is called the eyepiece. The bottom lens is known as the objective lens. So today, when we say "microscope," we really mean "compound microscope".

There is a lens called "the objective" which produces a primary magnified image. Then there is another lens called "the eyepiece" or "ocular," which magnifies that first image. In actual practice, there are several lenses used for both the objective and ocular, but the principle is that of two-stage magnification.

It is believed that Zacharias Jansen's father, Hans, helped him build the first microscope in 1595. Zacharias wrote to a Dutch diplomat, William Boreel, about the invention. When the physician of the French king inquired about the invention in the 1650's, Boreel recounted the design of the microscope.

Anton van Leeuwenhoek

It was Anton van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723), a Dutch draper and scientist, and one of the pioneers of microscopy who in the late 17th century became the first man to make and use a real microscope.

Van Leeuwenhoek achieved greater success than his contemporaries by developing ways to make superior lenses, grinding and polishing five hundred and fifty lenses to make his new lens tube that had a magnifying power of 270x and could view objects one millionth of a meter (other microscopes of the time were lucky to achieve 50x magnification).

Van Leeuwenhoek made many biological discoveries using his microscopes. He was the first to see and describe bacteria, yeast plants, the teeming life in a drop of water, and the circulation of blood corpuscles in capillaries. During a long life he used his lenses to make pioneer studies on an extraordinary variety of things, both living and non living, and reported his findings in over a hundred letters to the Royal Society of England and the French Academy.

Van Leewenhoek's work was verified and further developed by English scientist Robert Hooke, who published the first work of microscopic studies, Micrographia, in 1665. Robert Hooke's detailed studies furthered study in the field of microbiology in England and advanced biological science as a whole.

Hooke's Micrographia

Robert Hooke published Micrographia in 1665. It is his most famous work and is notable for the stunning illustrations, drawn by Hooke himself. Microphagia presents several accounts of Hooke's observations through the use of the microscope. He looked at all sorts of things (snow, a needle, a razor, etc.) with a primitive compound microscope, but his most significant observations were done on fleas and cork. He observed the fleas under the microscope and was able to observe the tiny hairs on the fleas' bodies. On the cork he saw pores. Upon examination of the pores, he decided to call them "cells"; however, he did not know he had just discovered plant cells.

Despite these great achievements in microscopy, microscopes didn't change much over the next 200 years, even though there were imperfections when viewing an object due to the different refraction of light. In the 1850s, German engineer Carl Zeiss began making refinements to the lenses he used in the microscopes he manufactured. In the 1880s, Zeiss hired glass specialist Otto Schott, who conducted research on optical glass, greatly contributing to the improvement of the optical quality of the microscope.

We should also mention Ernst Abbe, who was hired by Zeiss to improve the manufacturing process of optical instruments, which back then was largely based on trial and error. In a long and fruitful collaboration, Abbe carried out theoretical studies of optical principles, improving the understanding of the optical quality of a microscope.

Modern compound microscopes

With the advancement of technology and improved optics, the microscope as we know it today came into being.

The theoretical minimum size able to be viewed by an optical microscope is 200nm (as defined by Abbe), since optical microscopes are only able focus on objects that are at least the size of a wavelength of light (usually, a wavelength of around 550 nm is assumed).

An electron microscope, in contrast, can magnify images thousands of times smaller than a wavelength of light.

The 12 Stages of Life

The Twelve Stages of the Human Life Cycle
Which stage of life is the most important?   Some might claim that infancy is the key stage, when a baby’s brain is wide open to new experiences that will influence all the rest of its later life. Others might argue that it’s adolescence or young adulthood, when physical health is at its peak.  Many cultures around the world value late adulthood more than any other, arguing that it is at this stage that the human being has finally acquired the wisdom necessary to guide others.  Who is right?  The truth of the matter is that every stage of life is equally significant and necessary for the welfare of humanity.  In my book The Human Odyssey: Navigating the Twelve Stages of Life, I’ve written that each stage of life has its own unique “gift” to contribute to the world.  We need to value each one of these gifts if we are to truly support the deepest needs of human life.  Here are what I call the twelve gifts of the human life cycle:

1. Prebirth:  Potential – The child who has not yet been born could become anything – a Michaelangelo, a Shakespeare, a Martin Luther King – and thus holds for all of humanity the principle of what we all may yet become in our lives.
2. Birth:  Hope – When a child is born, it instills in its parents and other caregivers a sense of optimism; a sense that this new life may bring something new and special into the world.  Hence, the newborn represents the sense of hope that we all nourish inside of ourselves to make the world a better place.
3. Infancy (Ages 0-3):   Vitality – The infant is a vibrant and seemingly unlimited source of energy.  Babies thus represent the inner dynamo of humanity, ever fueling the fires of the human life cycle with new channels of psychic power.
4. Early Childhood (Ages 3-6):  Playfulness – When young children play, they recreate the world anew.  They take what is and combine it with the what is possible to fashion events that have never been seen before in the history of the world.  As such, they embody the principle of innovation and transformation that underlies every single creative act that has occurred in the course of civilization.
5. Middle Childhood (Ages 6-8):  Imagination – In middle childhoood, the sense of an inner subjective self develops for the first time, and this self is alive with images taken in from the outer world, and brought up from the depths of the unconscious.  This imagination serves as a source of creative inspiration in later life for artists, writers, scientists, and anyone else who finds their days and nights enriched for having nurtured a deep inner life.
6. Late Childhood (Ages 9-11):  Ingenuity – Older children have acquired a wide range of social and technical skills that enable them to come up with marvelous strategies and inventive solutions for dealing with the increasing pressures that society places on them.  This principle of ingenuity lives on in that part of ourselves that ever seeks new ways to solve practical problems and cope with everyday responsibilities.
7. Adolescence (Ages 12-20):  Passion -  The biological event of puberty unleashes a powerful set of changes in the adolescent body that reflect themselves in a teenager’s sexual, emotional, cultural, and/or spiritual passion.  Adolescence passion thus represents a significant touchstone for anyone who is seeking to reconnect with their deepest inner zeal for life.
8. Early Adulthood (Ages 20-35):  Enterprise –  It takes enterprise for young adults to accomplish their many responsibilities, including finding a home and mate, establishing a family or circle of friends, and/or getting a good job.  This principle of enterprise thus serves us at any stage of life when we need to go out into the world and make our mark.
9. Midlife (Ages 35-50):  Contemplation – After many years in young adulthood of following society’s scripts for creating a life, people in midlife often take a break from worldly responsibilities to reflect upon the deeper meaning of their lives, the better to forge ahead with new understanding.  This element of contemplation represents an important resource that we can all draw upon to deepen and enrich our lives at any age.
10. Mature Adulthood (Ages 50-80): Benevolence – Those in mature adulthood have raised families, established themselves in their work life, and become contributors to the betterment of society through volunteerism, mentorships, and other forms of philanthropy.  All of humanity benefits from their benevolence.  Moreover, we all can learn from their example to give more of ourselves to others.
11. Late Adulthood (Age 80+):  Wisdom – Those with long lives have acquired a rich repository of experiences that they can use to help guide others.  Elders thus represent the source of wisdom that exists in each of us, helping us to avoid the mistakes of the past while reaping the benefits of life’s lessons.
12. Death & Dying:  Life – Those in our lives who are dying, or who have died, teach us about the value of living.  They remind us not to take our lives for granted, but to live each moment of life to its fullest, and to remember that our own small lives form of a part of a greater whole.

Since each stage of life has its own unique gift to give to humanity, we need to do whatever we can to support each stage, and to protect each stage from attempts to suppress its individual contribution to the human life cycle.  Thus, we need to be wary, for example, of attempts to thwart a young child’s need to play through the establishment high-pressure formal academic preschools.  We should protect the wisdom of aged from elder abuse.  We need to do what we can to help our adolescents at risk.  We need to advocate for prenatal education and services for poor mothers, and support safe and healthy birthing methods in third world countries. We ought to take the same attitude toward nurturing the human life cycle as we do toward saving the environment from global warming and industrial pollutants.  For by supporting each stage of the human life cycle, we will help to ensure that all of its members are given care and helped to blossom to their fullest degree.

The DepEd Vision

We dream of Filipinos
who passionately love their country
and whose values and competencies
enable them to realize their full potential
and contribute meaningfully to building the nation.

As a learner-centered public institution,
the Department of Education
continuously improves itself
to better serve its stakeholders. 

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The DepEd Mission

To protect and promote the right of every Filipino to quality, equitable, culture-based, and complete basic education where:

Students learn in a child-friendly, gender-sensitive, safe, and motivating environment.
Teachers facilitate learning and constantly nurture every learner.
Administrators and staff, as stewards of the institution, ensure an enabling and supportive environment for effective learning to happen.
Family, community, and other stakeholders are actively engaged and share responsibility for developing life-long learners.