Antoni Van Leeuwenhoek: First to See Microscopic Life (Great Minds of Science) - Softcover

Yount, Lisa

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0766018660 ISBN 13: 9780766018662

Publisher: Enslow Pub Inc, 2001

Synopsis

A biography of the cloth merchant-turned-scientist who made many discoveries examining microsopic life.

About this title

From the Author

synopsis
Eccentric seventeenth-century Dutch microscopist Antoni van Leeuwenhoek made his own single-lens microscopes from scratch and saw through them wonders that no one else had glimpsed. Most interesting were the "little animals" that he found swimming in pond water and other substances--the first microorganisms a human had ever observed. He made meticulous descriptions of these organisms, the life cycles of many insects (at a time when many people still believed that insects were produced spontaneously from decaying matter, a theory he helped to disprove), and red blood cells, sperm, and other body cells. He was the first to see many of these or correctly explain their function. His childlike curiosity about and admiration for the living things he saw under his microscopes, even the most despised of insects such as lice and flies, made him an appealing person as well as a fine scientist. This book describes Leeuwenhoek's discoveries, personality, and life in language that an elementary-school child can understand.

Edition details

• Publisher: Enslow Pub Inc
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0766018660
• ISBN 13: 9780766018662
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 128