As a result, no significant scientific breakthroughs came from them for about 100 years, says Ruzin.Д«ut by the late 1600s, improvements to the lenses increased the quality of the image and theВ magnifying power to up to 270x, paving the way for major discoveries. вЂњThe hand lenses were much better.вЂќДЄlthough they provided magnification, these first compound microscopes couldnвЂ™t increase resolution, so magnified images appeared blurry and obscured. вЂњI have imaged through them and they are really quite awful,вЂќ says Ruzin. The quality of the image was mediocre at best, says Steven Ruzin, a microscopist and curator of the Golub Microscope Collection at the University of California at Berkeley. The device laid critical groundwork for future breakthroughs, but only magnified by between 3x and 9x. A Dutch father-son team named Hans and Zacharias Janssen invented the first so-called compound microscope in the late 16th century when they discovered that, if they put a lens at the top and bottom of a tube and looked through it, objects on the other end became magnified. This type of curiosity in the going-ons of tiny worlds propelled microscopy from its inception. He describes his awe at the phenomena he discovered under the scope that he couldnвЂ™t see with his bare eyes: вЂњYou are studying a world which doesnвЂ™t even obey the same rules of perception.вЂќ вЂњItвЂ™s like play dough, it can be very soft,вЂќ Amos says of copper. His intrigue in microscopic worlds became insatiable as he explored anything he could find, from the force within tiny, popping bubbles to the way pieces of copper molded under the poke of a needle. While cutting-edge for the time, they wouldnвЂ™t impress you much that werenвЂ™t much stronger than a handheld magnifying glass.ДЄmos has been obsessed with even these simplest of microscopes ever since he got one for a birthday as a kid.

But these cutting-edge advancements all trace back to the very first microscopes built in the 16th and 17th centuries. Today, microscopists like Amos are working around the world to innovate new technologies with widespread applications in medicine and human health. вЂњIt has the large coverage of a photographic camera lens and the fine resolution of the microscope objective, so it has the advantages of the two approaches,вЂќ says Amos.

Named one of Physics WorldвЂ™s Top Ten Breakthroughs of 2016, the so-called Mesolens is so powerful that it can image entire tumors or mouse embryos in one field of view while simultaneously imaging the insides of cells. Now 71 years old, he works as a visiting professor at University of Strathclyde in Scotland where he leads a team of researchers designing an extremely large new microscope lens-about the length and width of a human arm. Brad Amos has spent most of his life thinking about and looking into tiny worlds.

Mimosa device discovery tool