Microscope Timeline

Lenses developed

The first microscope was invented

Robert Hooke looked at a silver of cork through a microscope and he was able to see cell type images

Anton van Leeuwenhoek built a simple microscope with one lens and he examined blood, yeast and insects. this was the first time someone had described bacteria.

Technical improvements were made to the average microscope

Joseph Jackson Lister discovered that if you use weak lenses and spread them apart and make them at different distances makes a good magnification.

Richard Zsigmondy developed the ultramicroscope which is able to see objects below the wavelength of light

The electron microscope was invented. It uses electrons instead of light to see the object

Frits Zernike invented the phase contrast microscope. This allowed the user to see colourless and transparent objects

The scunning tunneling microscope was invented. This microscope gave 3 dimensional images of objects the chance to be able to go down to an atomic level.