A World on A Different Point of view

By Annmarie Leaser


Having very encouraging parents at the age of eight, my father and mother told me that I could become a scientist one day when I told them I wanted a microscope. I had my first microscope that Christmas. I was so engrossed with what I saw that it had me thinking what if I could discover a new organism, or a cure for a disease or one that could contribute to the betterment of human life, then maybe I could become a Noble Peace Prize winner.

I looked at everything I could get my hands on under that little microscope. Somewhat different, that winter produced various snowflakes. Ones that I've never seen before and I fell in love with its splendor. Each snowflake was a beauty in its own intricate artwork, like a marvelous present handed from above.

The microscope's mixture of glass lenses and light allows small invisible things to appear large to the naked eye. A revelation of magnifiers, burning glasses (holding them against the sunlight would set fire on the piece of parchment or cloth underneath it), and magnifying glasses existing in 100 A.D. was seen in the writings of Seneca, Pliny the Elder, and Roman philosophers. Then came the word lenses. It's because the shape of the magnifying glasses looked like a seed of a lentil.

The earliest microscope was just a tube with a plate for the object at one end and a magnification lens that enlarged objects ten times its size on the other. Derived from the insect that they very much like to look at with these lenses, thus it was called flea glasses.

The experimentation of several lenses in a tube led to the discovery of objects appearing enlarged in 1590 by Zaccharias Janssen and his son Hans.The instrument improved over the years as different inventors added their knowledge and expertise.In 1609, Galileo made his contribution by improving the principles of the lenses with a focusing device.But, it is Anton Van Leeuwenhoek of Holland that is considered the father of microscopy. It started when he worked at a dry goods store as a trainee and a magnifying glass was what he used to tally the threads in the fabric. Later, he learned to grind and polish tiny lenses with excellent curves that can magnify up to 270 diameters. He also started making microscopes that later famed him for his first biological breakthroughs.He is credited as the first to see bacteria, yeast plants, the life living in droplets of water, and the circulation of blood in the capillaries. It must have been a breathtaking moment. In the following years that came, there were insignificant improvements. However, by the 19th century, an American scientist by the name of Charles A. Spencer was able to manufacture the best lenses that can amplify the object's appearance of up to 1250 diameters if used with natural light and 5000 diameters if used with blue light.

With the variety of microscopes in the market, you can pick one that can satisfy your child's curios mind or take a look at those used by the business sector, in research laboratories and for health examinations. Without a doubt and despite the size, it will still be intriguing to look through the lens.




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