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Who is the popular scientist who found out about micro-organisms?

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Ray Dart Profile
Ray Dart answered

Anton van Leeuwenhoek

Dutch "inventor" of the microscope - he discovered things like amoebae. He referred to all microscopic living things as "animalcules".

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Ray Dart
Ray Dart commented
Hence the quotes around "inventor" - "Improver" would have been more accurate - but then I'd have had to explain it......
John McCann
John McCann commented
I was talking about Leeuwenhoek not giving the secret of his lenses to the delegation sent by Hooke to see through the actual microscope Leeuwenhoek had developed.

He had sent many drawings to the Royal Society of what he saw through his microscope ( with his special dropped forged lenses ) but the Royal Society, through Robert Hooke, sent a delegation to see if the drawings agreed with reality since Leeuwenhoek would neither come to England nor give up the secret of his microscope. 

The secret was not rediscovered for about another 300 years.

It is an apocryphal tale the Hooke actually looked through the lenses of Leeuwenhoek himself. He sent a delegation headed by a clergyman of all things!
Ray Dart
Ray Dart commented
A story I did not know. I was aware of the rivalry only.

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