Microscope

The microscope is an instrument that magnifies small objects such that they become observable by humans. Here, small (or microscopic) means below the spatial resolution of the human eye (around 100μm).

The history of the microscope

See:

• http://www.archive.org/details/CantorLecuturesTheMicroscope
• http://www.worldscibooks.com/popsci/4034.html
• http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/233106.ctl
• Minute Particulars: Microscopy and Eighteenth-Century Narrative
• The Quest for the Invisible: Microscopy in the Enlightenment

• Contents: Introduction; Part 1 The Definition of Microscopical Objects 1680–1740: Production and visibility of microscopes in the first half of the 18th century; The study of animalcules at the turn of the 18th century; Insects, hermaphrodite and ambiguity. Part 2 The Break with the Past 1740–1760s: Towards marketing strategies for the microscope in the second half of the 18th century; Abraham Trembly, the polyp and new directions for microscopical research; The disputes over authority and microscopical observations. Part 3 Infusoria and Microscopical Experiments: The True Invisible Objects 1760s–1800s: The quantifying spirit in microscopical research and keeping up with invisible objects; The emergence of the systematics of infusoria; From spontaneous generation to the limits of life: microscopical experimentalist research from the 1760s to 1800; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.