Zacharias Janssen（詹森），发明了显微镜

------美国物理学会的观点

在《显微镜的发明故事》[1]一文中，提及了一个人，荷兰的外交官William Boreel。这篇文章，很可能是“抄袭”自《大约1590年：显微镜的发明》（萧如珀、杨信男，台湾大学物理系）[2]；萧如珀，的文章明确了是翻译自，APS News, March 2004，http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200403/ ）。

APS，是，American Physical Society，的缩写[3]；因此，英文出处可以参看[4]。从可信度说，APS的说法，应该算是较为靠谱的。那么，也就是说，从现有的资料、研究看，光学显微镜的发明人应该是更倾向于：Zacharias Janssen。

参考资料：

[1]  http://doc.qkzz.net/article/d5765529-a6f2-4dcd-bd2f-c84ca8165468.htm  显微镜的发明故事  □ 王文轩

每一个主要的科学领域都曾因使用不同款式的显微镜而获得进展。显微镜的发明可追溯到16世纪末期，一个谦虚的荷兰眼镜制造商叫做Zacharias Janssen。虽然相较于当今款式的显微镜来说，当时的显像和倍率都极为粗糙，但是Janssen的显微镜在科学仪器发展史上却是一个根本性的突破。

　　Janssen是荷兰一个眼镜制造商Hans Janssen的儿子。虽然人们将发明复式显微镜的美誉归于Zacharias，但大多数的历史学家都预测他父亲应该曾扮演着重要的角色，因为在1590年代，Zacharias还只不过是个十多岁的小孩。当时的人们刚开始广泛地使用眼镜，非常重视光学与透镜。

　　历史学家能将显微镜发明日期溯及1590年代初期，主要归功于荷兰的外交官William Boreel，他是Janseen家族的老朋友，于1650年代写了一封信给法国国王，详细叙述显微镜的起源。他描述一个垂直架在铜三角架上，大约21时长的仪器，其中主要的管直径为一、二时，底座是黑檀木制作的圆盘，一端是凹透镜，另一端为凸透镜；不同透镜的组合使此仪器可以折射光线，并将原来的样品影像放大3～9倍。

　　Janseen早期的显微镜都没有留存下来，但一个Middle-burg的博物馆却收藏着一部1595年的显微镜，上面刻有Janseen的名字。它的设计有些不同，由三个管组成，其中两个是套管，可以滑进做为外管的第三个管内。这个显微镜是用手拿着，当观察样品要对焦时，可将套管滑进、滑出，当套管伸展到最长时，放大的影像可达原来样品的10倍。

虽然Janseen的发明很有创意，但此仪器还是经过了50年才广泛地为科学家所使用。约克郡的Henry Power是第一个发表利用显微镜观察得到结果的科学家；1661年，Marcetla Malphigi利用显微镜发现青蛙肺脏的毛细血管，提供了决定性的证据，来支持Harvey血液循环的理论。

　　《微物图解》的作者虎克（Robert Hooke）实际上依赖伦敦的仪器制造商Christn-pher Cock来制造显微镜，不过，虎克仍是最早对显微镜的原始设计做出实质改进的人之一。虎克的显微镜和早期的望远镜有许多共同之处：眼杯用来维持眼睛和目镜之间的正确距离，对焦使用分开的套管，球窝接头用以托住倾斜的身体。

　　至于光学方面，虎克使用双凸物镜，置放在鼻子上，加上一个目镜，一个管子或调整型透镜。很不幸地，这样的组合导致透镜呈现出严重的色差与球形像差，得到的影像很不理想。于是，他设法在管道中间放置一小隔膜，来降低周围的光线，使影像更明确，以改进其所产生的像差，结果却造成非常暗的影像。因此，他将油灯的光通过充满水的玻璃，使光线扩散来照亮样品，可是得到的影像仍是模糊。

　　后来，荷兰的科学家Anton van Leeuwenhoek进一步改良了显微镜，也因此，Van Leeuwenhoek有时会被公认为是显微镜的发明者，其实他并非发明者，只是《微物图解》的超级崇拜者。他的显微镜倍率在当时是最好的：他成功地使用单一透镜将样品放大270倍。Van Leeuwenhoek利用他的显微镜来描述从牙齿刮下碎屑中的细菌，还用它来研究在池塘水中所找到的原生动物。

18世纪初，英国仪器设计师曾引进Edmund Culpeper所发明三角架显微镜的改良型，其他的改良还包括更精密的对焦机制，不过透镜的设计一直很简陋，所以大多数的显微镜都为模糊的影像与光学上的像差所苦。在19世纪上半期，由于玻璃组成的精进与消色物镜的发展，使得光学有了突破性的进步。消色物镜更有效地降低透镜的球形像差，不会有颜色上的扭曲。

　　20世纪改良后的显微镜可以让显微镜家族在改变倍率时仍能对焦。由于分辨率、对比技术、萤光标示与数字影像等的大幅改进，和其他无数的创新，使得显微镜学已在各个不同的领域如化学、物理、材料科学、微电子和生物方面都掀起了革命。

如今，人们已可在自然的环境下实时执行活细胞的萤光显微镜操作，1999年。Intel和Mattel合作生产标价美元100元的Intel Play QX3计算机显微镜，将显微镜带入消费市场。有着早期显微镜先驱研究精神的佛罗里达州立大学的科学家，更将显微镜学应用于最初所观察的事物上，将此精密的仪器对准每日所使用的普通物品，如美国的主要商品汉堡和薯条，详实地观察麦粒的薄片、洋葱的组织、马铃薯的粉粒和结成晶体的乳酪蛋白质。

（题名：显微镜的发明故事  作者：王文轩 出处：《发明与创新（学生版）》 2007年第10期）

[2]  http://www.cnki.com.cn/Article/CJFDTotal-XDWZ200702021.htm  《大约1590年：显微镜的发明》（萧如珀、杨信男，台湾大学物理系）

[3]  http://www.aps.org/  American Physical Society（APS）

[4]  http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200403/history.cfm  Lens Crafters Circa 1590: Invention of the Microscope（This Month in Physics History）

Zacharias Janssen

Every major field of science has benefited from the use of some form of microscope, an invention that dates back to the late 16th century and a modest Dutch eyeglass maker named Zacharias Janssen. While extremely rough in image quality and magnification compared to modern versions, the Janssen microscope was nonetheless a seminal advance in scientific instrumentation.

Janssen was the son of a spectacle maker named Hans Janssen, in Middleburg, Holland, and while Zacharias is credited with inventing the compound microscope, most historians surmise that his father must have played a vital role, since Zacharias was still in his teens in the 1590s. At that time, eyeglasses were beginning to be used widely among the populace, focusing a great deal of attention on optics and lenses. In fact, some historians credit both the Janssens and a fellow Dutch eyeglass maker, Hans Lippershey, with concurrent, though independent, invention of the microscope.

Historians are able to date the invention to the early 1590s thanks to Dutch diplomat William Boreel, a longtime family friend of the Janssens who wrote a letter to the French king in the 1650s detailing the origins of the microscope. He described a device that rose vertically from a brass tripod almost two and a half feet long. The main tube was an inch or two in diameter and contained an ebony disk at its base, with a concave lens at one end and a convex lens at the other; the combination of lenses enabled the instrument to bend light and enlarge images between three and nine times the size of the original specimen.

No early models of Janssen microscopes have survived, but a Middleburg museum has a microscope dated from 1595, bearing the Janssen name. The design is somewhat different, consisting of three tubes, two of which are draw tubes that can slide into the third, which acts as an outer casing. The microscope is handheld and can be focused by sliding the draw tube in or out while observing the sample, and is capable of magnifying images up to ten times their original size when extended to the maximum.

As ingenious as the Janssen invention was, it would be more than half a century before the instrument found widespread use among scientists. The Yorkshire scientist Henry Power was the first to publish observations made with a microscope, and in 1661 Marcello Malphigi used a microscope to provide clinching evidence in support of Harvey's theory of blood circulation when he discovered the capillary vessels in the lungs of a frog.

Micrographia author Robert Hooke was among the first to make significant improvements to the basic design, although he relied on London instrument maker Christopher Cock to actually build the instruments. Hooke's microscope shared common features with early telescopes: an eyecup to maintain the correct distance between the eye and eyepiece, separate draw tubes for focusing, and a ball and socket joint for inclining the body. For the optics, Hooke used a bi-convex objective lens placed in the snout, combined with an eyepiece lens and a tube or field lens. Unfortunately, the combination caused the lenses to suffer from significant chromatic and spherical aberration, yielding very poor images. He attempted to correct the aberrations by placing a small diaphragm into the optical pathway to reduce peripheral light rays and sharpen the image, but this only resulted in very dark samples. So he passed light generated from an oil lamp through a glass filled with water to diffuse the light and illuminate his specimens. But the images remained blurred.

It fell to a Dutch scientist, Anton van Leeuwenhoek, to make further improvements. Van Leeuwenhoek is sometimes popularly credited with the microscope's invention. He wasn't the inventor, but he was a great admirer of the Micrographia, and his instruments were the best of his era in terms of magnification: he achieved magnifying power up to 270 times larger than the actual size of the sample, using a single lens. He used his microscopes to describe bacteria harvested from tooth scrapings, and to study protozoans found in pond water.

By the dawn of the 18th century, British instrument designers had introduced improved versions of the tripod microscope invented by Edmund Culpeper. Other improvements included advanced focus mechanisms, although lens design remained rough and most instruments continued to be plagued by blurred images and optical aberrations. In the first half of the 19th century, dramatic improvements in optics were made, thanks to advanced glass formulations and the development of achromatic objective lenses. The latter had significantly reduced spherical aberration in the lens, making it free of color distortions.

The 20th century brought the introduction of instruments enabling the image to remain in focus when the microscopist changed magnification. Thanks to vastly improved resolution, contrast-enhancing techniques, fluorescent labeling, digital imaging, and countless other innovations, microscopy has revolutionized such diverse fields as chemistry, physics, materials science, microelectronics, and biology.

Today, it is possible to perform real-time fluorescence microscopy of living cells in their natural environment, while in 1999 Intel and Mattel collaborated on producing the $100 Intel Play QX3 Computer Microscope （since discontinued）, bringing the instrument into the consumer marketplace. And in the spirit of the early pioneers of microscopic research, scientists at Florida State University have brought the field full circle, turning their advanced instruments on common everyday objects like that All-American staple, burgers and fries, detailing thin sections of wheat kernel, onion tissue, starch granules in potato tissue, and crystallized cheese proteins.

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