Microscope

A microscope (from the Ancient Greek: μικρός, mikrós, "small" and σκοπεῖν, skopeîn, "to look" or "see") is an instrument used to see objects that are too small for the naked eye. The science of investigating small objects using such an instrument is called microscopy. Microscopic means invisible to the eye unless aided by a microscope.

There are many types of microscopes. The most common (and the first to be invented) is the optical microscope, which uses light to image the sample. Other major types of microscopes are the electron microscope (both the transmission electron microscope and the scanning electron microscope), the ultramicroscope, and the various types of scanning probe microscope.

On October 8, 2014, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Eric Betzig, William Moerner and Stefan Hell for "the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy," which brings "optical microscopy into the nanodimension".

History

The first microscope to be developed was the optical microscope, although the original inventor is not easy to identify. Evidence points to the first compound microscope appearing in the Netherlands by the 1620s, with a likely inventor being Cornelis Drebbel. Counter claims include it being invented by Hans Lippershey (who obtained the first telescope patent) and what may be a dubious claim by Zacharias Janssen's son that his father invented the microscope and telescope.Giovanni Faber coined the name microscope for Galileo Galilei's compound microscope in 1625 (Galileo had called it the "occhiolino" or "little eye").