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Hans and Zacharias Janssen
Dutch lens grinders that made the first microscope by placing two lenses in a tube. -
Robert Hooke
He was the first to view and describe cells, and named them in the process. -
Robert Hooke
Studied various objects with his microscope and publishes his results in Micrographia. Among his work were a description of cork and its ability to float in water. -
Francesco Redi
Francesco Redi was an Italian physician, naturalist, biologist and poet. He is referred to as the "founder of experimental biology", and as the "father of modern parasitology". He was the first person to challenge the theory of spontaneous generation by demonstrating that maggots come from eggs of flies. -
Anton van Leeuwenhoek
He looked at various samples or water to view single-celled organisms that he named animalcules. -
Charles Hall
Discovered that by using a second lens of different shape and refracting properties, he could realign colors with minimal impact on the magnification of the first lens. -
John Needham
presented his theory of spontaneous generation and attempted to offer scientific evidence supporting the theory. -
Joseph Jackson Lister
Reduced the problem with spherical aberration of a microscope by showing that several weak lenses used together at certain distances gave good magnification without blurring the image. -
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Matthias Schleiden and Theodor Schwann
they concluded that all living things were made up of cells also that a cell is the smallest unit of organization in a living thing, forming the basis of Cell Theory -
Rudolf Virchow
Proved through tests that new cells come from pre-existing cells and do not appear spontaneously. This hypothesis was important to the understanding of cells and cell theory because it explained how living things grow and reproduce. -
Louis Pasteur
Discovered that microorganisms do not appear as a result of Spontaneous Generation. Instead, they are introduced into food through dust particles and other things that happen to land on the food. -
Ernst Abbe
Formulated a mathematical theory correlating resolution to the wavelength of light. Abbe’s formula makes calculations of max resolution in microscopes possible. -
Richard Zsigmondy
Developed the ultra-microscope and is able to study objects below the wavelength of light. -
Max Knoll and Ernst Ruska
Invented the first electron microscope that blasted past the optical limitations of the light. -
Frits Zernike
Invented the phase-contrast microscope that allows the study of colourless and transparent biological materials. -
Ernst Ruska
Developed the electron microscope. The ability to use electrons in microscopy greatly improves the resolution and greatly expands the borders of exploration. -
Stanley Miller and Harold Urey
They simulated hypothetical conditions present on the early Earth in order to test what kind of environment would be needed to allow life to begin. -
Lazzaro Spallanzani
He constructed his own experiment by placing broth in each of two separate bottles, boiling the broth in both bottles, then sealing one bottle and leaving the other open. -
Lynn Margulis
Argued that symbiosis was an unrecognized but major force in the evolution of cells. -
Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer
Invented the scanning tunneling microscope that gives three-dimensional images of objects down to the atomic level.