{"id":3257,"date":"2015-01-26T09:55:00","date_gmt":"2015-01-26T08:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.embl.de\/?p=3257"},"modified":"2024-11-29T16:55:14","modified_gmt":"2024-11-29T15:55:14","slug":"1501-microscopes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/1501-microscopes\/","title":{"rendered":"Miraculous microscopes: a brief history"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"p1\">Back in 1673 van Leeuwenhoek, then a curious young trader, began to take an interest in lens making \u2013 and from there, microscopes. Developing his ingenuously simple contraption to zoom in on the micro-world, he stepped into a completely different dimension, discovering what he called \u201canimalcules\u201d \u2013 or as we know them today, microorganisms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Fast-forward two centuries, and Carl Zeiss, struggling with his lens-making workshop, decided to switch to microscope making. A collaboration with physicist Ernst Abbe provided the spark for microscopy to take another giant leap. Abbe postulated the Abbe sine condition, which had to be fulfilled by a lens to produce sharp, undistorted images. Calling in glass chemist Otto Schott, the trio put their heads together to design and build the first apochromatic objective \u2013 a powerful device allowing clearer images with minimal colour distortion \u2013 lenses that are still used in science today.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"vf-blockquote\"><p class=\"p1\">Developing his ingenuously simple contraption to zoom in on the micro-world, he stepped into a completely different dimension.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Abbe\u2019s astonishing contribution to microscopy did not stop there. Crucially, he also defined the theoretical resolution limit of the microscope \u2013 roughly 100 times smaller than a human cell. This resolution limit held up for more than a century, <a title=\"Breaking boundaries\" href=\"http:\/\/news.embl.de\/science\/1410_hell\/\">until Stefan Hell, Eric Betzig and William Moerner smashed through the diffraction barrier<\/a> to make super-resolution microscopy a reality. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A brief history of microscopes, from van Leeuwenhoek to Betzig, Hell and Moerner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":3258,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,17591],"tags":[79,60],"embl_taxonomy":[],"class_list":["post-3257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","category-science-technology","tag-microscopy","tag-science-and-society"],"acf":{"article_intro":"<p>It is impossible to imagine where cell biology would be without the invention of the light microscope.\u00a0But what is now a complex network of lasers, optics and mechanics, started off as a simple brass plate, with a small glass sphere serving as an objective \u2013 while the only light needed was sunlight. And we have Dutch scientist Anton van Leeuwenhoek to thank for that.<\/p>\n","related_links":false,"article_sources":false,"vf_locked":false,"featured":false,"color":"#007B53"},"embl_taxonomy_terms":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Miraculous microscopes: a brief history | EMBL<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A brief history of microscopes, from van Leeuwenhoek to Betzig, Hell and Moerner.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/1501-microscopes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Miraculous microscopes: a brief history | EMBL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A brief history of microscopes, from van Leeuwenhoek to Betzig, Hell and Moerner.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/1501-microscopes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"EMBL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/embl.org\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-01-26T08:55:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-11-29T15:55:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/1501-microscopes-ib.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"620\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"425\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Michele Cristovao\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@embl\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@embl\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Michele Cristovao\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"NewsArticle\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/1501-microscopes\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/1501-microscopes\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Michele Cristovao\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/ec7e4aa58bb1aba6041c5dd4c7a077dc\"},\"headline\":\"Miraculous microscopes: a brief history\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-01-26T08:55:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-11-29T15:55:14+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/1501-microscopes\/\"},\"wordCount\":221,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/1501-microscopes\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/1501-microscopes-ib.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"microscopy\",\"science and society\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Science\",\"Science &amp; 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