The microscope is one of the greatest inventions of mankind in all time. Before it was invented, humans could only see the world with the eye. The microscope has truly revolutionized human understanding of the world. It has opened up new areas of science and enabled us to study the smallest things in life.

The microscope brought a whole new world to the human eye, for the first time, people saw hundreds of "new" tiny animals and plants, as well as the inner workings of everything from the human body to plant fibers.

Microscopes also helped scientists discover new species and helped doctors treat diseases.

The earliest microscopes were made in the Netherlands in the late 16th century.

The inventor may have been a Dutch optician named Zacharias Jensen, or another Dutch scientist, Hans Liepersch, who made simple microscopes with two lenses but did not make any significant observations with these instruments.

Later two men began to use microscopes in science. The first was the Italian scientist Galileo, who first described the compound eye of an insect after observing it through a microscope.

The second was the Dutch linen weaver Antony van Leeuwenhoek, who learned to sharpen the lens himself. He described many tiny plants and animals that were invisible to the eye.

In 1931, Ernst Ruska revolutionized biology by developing the electron microscope, which allowed scientists to observe objects as small as one-millionth of a millimeter, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1986.

Microscopes can be classified by microscopic principles into optical microscopes and electron microscopes, and by the way, they are used in desktop microscopes and portable microscopes.

Optical microscopes are usually composed of optical parts, illumination parts, and mechanical parts.

Undoubtedly, the optical part is the most crucial, which consists of an eyepiece and an objective lens.

At present, there are many kinds of optical microscopes, mainly bright field microscopes, dark field microscopes, fluorescence microscopes, phase contrast microscopes, laser copolymer scanning microscopes, polarized light microscopes, differential interference difference microscopes, and inverted microscopes.

The electron microscope has similar basic structural features as an optical microscope, but it has a much higher ability to magnify and distinguish objects than an optical microscope, it uses electron flow as a new light source to image objects.

Since Ruska invented the first transmission electron microscope in 1938, the performance of the transmission electron microscope itself has been continuously improved and many types of electron microscopes have been developed.

Such as scanning electron microscope, analytical electron microscope, ultra-high voltage electron microscope, etc.

Combined with various techniques of electron microscope sample preparation, the samples can be studied in depth in terms of structure or structure-function relationship.

Table-top microscopes are mainly traditional microscopes, which are generally large and not easy to move, and are mostly used in laboratories.

Portable microscope, mainly the extension of the digital microscope and video microscope series developed in recent years, generally pursue portable, small and delicate.

With its screen, can be separated from the computer host for independent imaging, easy to operate, but also can be integrated with some digital functions, such as support for photography, video, or image comparison, measurement, and other functions.

Nowadays, the microscope has become one of the essential instruments for many kinds of research and is a great invention.