Investigating Nature

The Microscope

Where the telescope ends the microscope begins, and who can say which has the wider vision?

~ Victor Hugo, Les Misérables, 1862

Mary Ward, The World of Wonders Revealed by the Microscope (1858)
The origins of the microscope, an instrument integral to modern science, can be traced back more than 400 years. Its potential as a tool for scientific investigation, however, would not begin to be realized until the middle of the 17th century. The English naturalist, Robert Hooke, carried out the first systematic observations of biological organisms under a microscope, which he later detailed in his widely popular book, Micrographia, (1665). Among the objects he presented to the public for the first time, was the plant cell.

Despite their usefulness, the first microscopes were not without their limitations. For example, magnified images were slightly blurred and their edges fringed with color, conditions resulting from the types of glass originally used to construct the lenses. In 1826, British physicist Joseph Jackson Lister built the first achromatic microscope, correcting these flaws. A decade later, this type of microscope went into mass production, and for the first time, microscopic images were rendered with incredible resolution and in their truest forms. Lister’s improved model heralded the new age of modern microscopy.