Early Light Microscopes

• There is evidence of people using different kinds of materials (beads, crystals, water droplets) as lenses and using light as medium to see smaller objects. However, it is not very clear who invented the first microscope and when this happened.

• In 1595, Hans Jansen or his son Zacharias of Holland invented the first compound microscope. A compound microscope is a microscope with two or more lenses.

• A person by the name of Robert Hooke (1635-1703) also liked to make and use compound microscopes. His microscopes enabled him to see small objects such as eyes of insects and point of needles.
• Around 1668, Antony van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723), a Dutch draper, started making simple microscopes (microscopes with single lenses). He made over 500 single lens microscopes and some of these could magnify up to 300 times.