samedi 3 décembre 2011

Passion for Invisible Worlds

By Oma Gritz


My parents always encouraged me to be whatever I wanted to be, so when I expressed my desire for a microscope when I was eight years old, they encouraged my 'inner child scientist. 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.

It made me look things in another perspective when I used that small microscope of mine. The snowfall during that time was unlike the usual. It made such exquisite snowflakes in all its variety. I adored it. Shown as a magnificent gift of majestic creation, every snowflake was a work of art, each one is unique in its fragile daintiness.

These tiny things are made visible to the naked eye as it is becomes enlarged by a pile of glass lenses as light passes through it. There were early magnifiers, burning glasses and magnifying glasses as scribed by Seneca, Pliny the Elder, and Roman philosophers during the first century A.D. Then came the word lenses. It's because the shape of the magnifying glasses looked like a seed of a lentil.

It only used a hollow cylindrical object with a lens on one end that can magnify ten times the object's appearance and on the other end is a plate for the specimen. These were the first models of a microscope. Because they were so fond of watching fleas and other insects in it, they also termed the lenses as flea glasses.

In 1590, Zaccharias Janssen and his son Hans discovered that objects can seem bigger as a result of their testing on various lenses in a tube. Other inventors extended their wisdom and ability in its development as the years went by. A lens with a focusing device was Galileo's contribution in the microscope's enhancement in 1609.But, it is Anton Van Leeuwenhoek of Holland that is considered the father of microscopy.He started as an apprentice in a dry goods store and used a magnifying glass to count the threads in cloth. He became skillful with the lenses and curved ones that can amplify objects up to 270 diameters.He began to build microscopes and eventually made biological discoveries that made him famous. Microbiological discoveries such as bacteria, yeast plants, organisms in water and blood circulation in the capillaries is accredited to him. It must have been a breathtaking moment. It was not until the 19th century that a great enhancement to the magnifying device was made. It had the best lenses ever created with its magnification increased to 1250 diameters with natural light and 5000 diameters with blue light. This invention is credited to an American scientist and manufacturer by the name of Charles A. Spencer.

Microscopes vary in shapes and sizes. You can buy one for your child to shift his interest on finding out specimens unseen by the naked eye. Other fields that use this as well are in the manufacturing and engineering sectors, scientific studies and medical field. Regardless of its dimensions, certainly you will be mesmerized.




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