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( Microscope)
A microscope (from the Greek µ?????, mikrós, "small" and s??pe??, skopeîn, "to look" or "see") is an instrument for viewing objects that are too small to be seen by the naked or unaided eye. The science of investigating small objects using such an instrument is called microscopy. The term 'microscopic' means minute or very small, not visible with the eye unless aided by a microscope. Microscopes trace their history back almost 1200 years with Abbas Ibn Firnas's corrective lenses,[1] and it was Ibn al-Haytham's Book of Optics—which was written from 1011 to 1021—that laid the foundation for optical research on the magnifying glass. Also, a device called the reading stone by an unknown inventor (thought to be Abbas Ibn Firnas) magnified text when laid on top of reading materials. [2] The first microscope was made around 1595 in Middelburg, Holland. [3] Three different eyeglass makers have been given credit for the invention Hans Lippershey (who also developed the first real telescope); Hans Janssen; and his son, Zacharias. The coining of the name "microscope" has been credited to Giovanni Faber, who gave that name to Galileo Galilei's compound microscope in 1625,[4]. (Galileo had called it the "occhiolino" or "little eye".) The most common type of microscope—and the first to be invented—is the optical microscope. This is an optical instrument containing one or more lenses that produce an enlarged image of an object placed in the focal plane of the lens(es). There are, however, many other microscope designs.
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