I am back to my study of scientists, after 3 weeks of learning about spies. Today, I learned about early microscopes. Although the true inventor of microscopes is unclear, Ernst Abbe is credited with making the microscope a feasible tool in science. Although Ernst is credited with making the microscope more advanced, Galileo Galilei actually discovered the properties of a inverted telescope with a lens on the end. In this way, he made a kind of rudimentary microscope. Like the telescope that Galileo invented, however, his microscope was just an early version, or a prototype. Ernst Abbe changed the microscope into a powerful tool that unlocked worlds that no one had ever seen before. In 1886, Ernst created formulas that allowed him to calculate the best type of glass to use, and how the lenses should be positioned on combined.
Today, I built a microscope of my own, based on the model made by Galileo. You can see some pictures of it below.
You can see the lens that I taped onto the edge here. To make this microscope, I took my telescope, (Which I wrote about earleir) flipped it upside-down, and taped this lens onto the end. Sorry that I couldn't get any pictures of it in action, but I couldn't get the camera to take a picture through the lens. However, I was able to look at induvidual ink dots in a letter, and look at a picture up close.
