Neil deGrasse Tyson honors Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, the self-taught pioneer who built early microscopes and unveiled the ...

Van Leeuwenhoek's own interest in lensmaking stemmed from his desire to more clearly see the quality of the thread he used in his draper business, ...

When Royal Society Secretary Henry Oldenburg asked Leeuwenhoek to look at semen, the Dutch draper initially did not reply “because he felt it was ‘unseemly.'” Despite living in the Dutch ...

Leeuwenhoek made a variety of microscopes by grinding his own lenses. Some could magnify by a factor of 270. He noticed tiny single-cell creatures in pond water and called them ‘animalcules’.

In 1677, Leeuwenhoek’s now-verified observations were published by the Royal Society (in English, after being translated from Dutch with help from Hooke, who learned Dutch so that he could read ...

Van Leeuwenhoek crafted more than 500 microscopes, but only 11 of his instruments survive today—and only one that produces the 270X magnification he used to make his greatest discovery.

A head louse as microscope pioneer Antoni van Leeuwenhoek might have seen it (Image: Brian J. Ford) Who needs fancy electron microscopes when you've got the simple but ingenious hand-held ...

Van Leeuwenhoek's claim resulted in widespread speculation. Innumerable suggestions were made, but a conclusive answer remained forthcoming. The 11 Leeuwenhoek microscopes that have stood the test ...

Van Leeuwenhoek wondered about this out loud: “[O]ver and above all, most men are not curious to know; nay, some even make no bones about saying, ...

Van Leeuwenhoek had to hold the 3- or 4-inch instrument close to his eye. Besides good lighting, it required sharp eyesight and a fair dose of patience. Van Leeuwenhoek had both.