Q 01/05

What is a microscope used to examine?

A) Objects too far away to see clearly

B) Objects moving too fast to follow

C) Objects that emit no visible light

D) Objects too small to see with the naked eye

Answer · why

D) Objects too small to see with the naked eye

The most common type, and the first invented, is the optical microscope, which uses lenses to refract visible light.

Q 02/05

Around what year did the earliest known compound microscopes appear in Europe?

A) 1620

B) 1700

C) 1540

D) 1450

Answer · why

A) 1620

The inventor is unknown; competing claims centre on the spectacle-making towns of the Netherlands.

Q 03/05

Which Dutch spectacle-maker is claimed, by his own son, to have invented the compound microscope in 1590?

A) Christiaan Huygens

B) Hans Lippershey

C) Cornelis Drebbel

D) Zacharias Janssen

Answer · why

D) Zacharias Janssen

He was twice accused of counterfeiting coins, and the claim was made twenty years after his death.

Q 04/05

In which Dutch town did the Janssen spectacle-makers live next door to the first man to seek a telescope patent?

A) Middelburg

B) Haarlem

C) Delft

D) Leiden

Answer · why

A) Middelburg

Lippershey applied for the first telescope patent in 1608 and is also credited by some with the microscope.

Q 05/05

What name did Galileo give to the compound microscope he built, before 'microscopio' was coined?

A) Lente doppia

B) Perspicillum

C) Cannocchiale

D) Occhiolino ('little eye')

Answer · why

D) Occhiolino ('little eye')

Giovanni Faber coined 'microscopio' in a letter to Federico Cesi after Galileo submitted the instrument to the Accademia dei Lincei in 1625.