Natural Science - Year I
Unit 25: The Microscope and Cells
History Weblecture for Unit 25
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History Lecture for Unit 25:
The History of the Microscope
For Class
- Period: 1400 ce to 1700 ce
For the interactive timelines, click on an image to bring it into focus and read notes.
Click on the icon to bring up the timeline in a separate browser window. You can then resize the window to make it easier to read the information.
Click here: Timeline PDF to bring up the timeline as a PDF document. You can then click on the individual events to see more information if you want. Exploring this version of the timeline is optional!
- Geographic Location: Europe
- People to know: Zacharias Jansen, Robert Hooke, Marcello Malpighi, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek
- See science topics: Cells
Lecture outline:
The Development of the Microscope
We've looked at methods of identifying scientific information and organizing it as part of the divisio scientiarum. We've discussed how changes in artistic conventions and perspective developed into new ways to document scientific observations and present information for education and reference. Now we turn to the development of an instrument that would prove useful for biology in particular by extending the range of possible observations to the very, very small.
Several years ago, The History of the Light Microscope disappeared from the web. Now, through the magic of the Wayback machine, you can recover and read this very good description of the History of the Light Microscope
[6 pages total, with graphics.]
.Please read all six chapters carefully, and make notes of anything you do not understand. Because of the length of this weblecture, no other reading is required for this history portion of this unit.
Study/Discussion Questions:
- What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of the compound microscope?
- What were some of the early controversies over using microscopes for scientific study?
- What are some of the issues in creating scientific instruments?
- How did competition among microscope makes help create better microscopes?
- Pick any two of the microscopes described and explain why they worked better than their predecessors.
Further Study/On Your Own
- For another summary of microscopes, check out the History of the Microscope at Vision Engineering.
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