Mystery of superior Leeuwenhoek microscope solved after 350 years
Researchers from TU Delft and Rijksmuseum Boerhaave have solved an age-old mystery surrounding Antonie van Leeuwenhoek’s microscopes. A unique collaboration at the interface between culture and science has proved conclusively that the linen trader and amateur scholar from Delft ground and used his own thin lenses.
Considering the unrivaled quality of the microscopic images produced by Van Leeuwenhoek, this was always thought to be practically impossible. The prevailing view was that grinding small lenses of such high quality by hand was simply a bridge too far. A new research method helped to solve the mystery—namely, using a neutron bundle from the TU Delft research reactor. The TU Delft Reactor Institute uses radiation to conduct research on materials, for energy and health care purposes.
The microscopes manufactured by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) featured a single lens and a spike upon which the sample was skewered. The microscopes of Van Leeuwenhoek’s contemporaries magnified objects approximately 30 times, but his microscopes were up to 10 times more powerful. How he managed this feat remained a mystery up until now. Was there truth in his claim that he had invented an advanced method of glass-blowing, as he revealed to a group of German nobles in a rare moment of candour in 1711? Or was his precise grinding responsible for the quality of the lens?
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