Читать книгу Cell Biology - Stephen R. Bolsover - Страница 23

Many different techniques have contributed to our understanding of the structure of cells but nothing can compare to actually seeing what is there. Microscopy, the visualization of small objects, began with Robert Hooke (1635–1703) who described the cella (open spaces) of plant tissues. But the colossus of this era of discovery was Anton van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723), a Dutchman with no scientific training but with unrivaled talents as both a microscope maker and as an observer and recorder of the microscopic living world. Van Leeuwenhoek's microscope was a single glass lens that bent light rays to form a magnified image so it, and all the later instruments that use visible light to image small structures, are called light microscopes.