Antoine van Leeuwenhoek Facts
Antoine van Leeuwenhoek Facts
|
| Interesting Antoine van Leeuwenhoek Facts: |
|---|
| van Leeuwenhoek was born in Delft to a basket-maker father and a mother whose family was financially comfortable in their trade as brewers. |
| After his father's death, he began school for a short time but was eventually sent to live with an uncle; while living with his uncle, he apprenticed to a draper, eventually opening his own cloth shop. |
| As an adult and shop owner in Delft, van Leeuwenhoek enjoyed some notable local recognition as an upstanding business owner and member of the local government. |
| There has been some speculation over the years that van Leeuwenhoek was tied to the painter, Johannes Vermeer, also of Delft, and that there is a possibility that he served as the model for two of Vermeer's well-known paintings; van Leeuwenhoek was the executor of Vermeer's estate upon the painter's death. |
| There isn't much information about what prompted van Leeuwenhoek's interest in lens making, although his process for creating tiny lenses has been recorded and studied. |
| His ability to create tiny spheres of glass from intense heat and long, thin straws of soda lime glass led to the ability to see microscopic particles. |
| van Leeuwenhoek kept his process a complete secret, especially after becoming widely known for his microscopes, due to the fear that recognized scientists would improve on his model and he would be forgotten. |
| As it was, he let outsiders remain under the impression that he ground the lenses by hand every night through a painstaking process similar to how large lenses were ground. |
| After the Royal Society in London published work from an Italian microscope developer, a friend of van Leeuwenhoek wrote to the Society with the news that his microscope lenses were far superior. This led to a brief connection between van Leeuwenhoek and the Royal Society. |
| Unfortunately, when van Leeuwenhoek eventually shared his observations of single-celled organisms with the Royal Society-organisms that were completely unheard of and not believed, let alone ever before observed-it caused a severe strain in their relationship and in his credibility. |
| Eventually, a committee from the Royal Society investigated his claims (1677) and he was later offered membership in the Society. |
| His strong understanding of business practices caused van Leeuwenhoek to be very protective of his inventions and his studies; there are only nine surviving versions of his more than 250 microscopes, although it is believed that he had many more stored away that he didn't share with the public. |
| The known microscopes carry magnifications up to about 275 times, but it's believed that he had developed 500x magnification lenses. |
|
Related Links: Facts Scientists Facts Animals Facts |