GREAT INVENTIONS (THE LENSES)

Humanity was always interested in seeing things more closely. Some curved glass pieces called lenses allow us to examine tiny objects in detail or see things that are far away. The lenses have been used for hundreds of years to correct the sight of human beings. The eyeglass manufacturers invented the microscope and the telescope, which also use lenses.

The first microscope was a simple metal tube with a lens at each end. It was invented by a Dutch optician named Hans Janssen around 1590. About 70 years later, a Briton named Robert Hooke built a microscope with two lenses that gave much clearer results.

The first glasses were made around the year 1280 by an Italian glass manufacturer named Salvano Degli Amati. It was two glass lenses mounted on leather that were held with a stick. If the lens was used in only one eye, it was called a monocle.

The first person who built a telescope was the Dutch optician Hans Lippershey, in 1608. Three years later, the Italian scientist Galileo Galilei copied the idea of Lippershey and used the telescope to observe the Sun, the Moon and the planets.

The first person who imagined contact lenses was the Italian genius Leonardo d Vinci in the fifteenth century. Then, the astronomer John Herschel copied the idea and discovered that he saw better after placing a layer of transparent gel in the eye.