Early microscopes offered sharp vision

Images from the first microscopes were clearer than was once believed.

 

A flea, as seen through an eighteenth-century microscope used poorly (left) and correctly (right). 

Whipple Museum of the History of Science

The first microscopes were a lot better than they are usually given credit for. That's the claim of microscopist Brian Ford, a specialist in the history and development of these instruments based at the University of Cambridge, UK.

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