The proud history of the 'Low Countries' in the history of optics
Landmark contributions of pioneers in optics and ophthalmology


Roibeard O’hEineachain
Published: Thursday, February 16, 2017

Microscopy also owes its origins to a lowlands scientist, Dutchman Antoni Van LeeuwenhoekMicroscopy also owes its origins to a lowlands scientist, Dutchman Antoni Van Leeuwenhoek (1632 – 1723), who developed the first microscope and was the first person to describe single celled organisms and the cellular basis of organic tissues. Furthermore, it was Dutchmen Hans Lipperley (1570-1619) and Zacharias Janssen who were co-inventors of the telescope. The next generation produced Christian Huygens (1629-1695), a contemporary of Isaac Newton, who was the first to propose the wave theory of light propagation , a concept familiar in refractive surgery in the science of aberrometry. The Lowlands can also claim Franz Cornelius Donders MD, who introduced the concept of correcting astigmatism. Also from the Low Countries was Dutch physicist Frits Zernike (1888-1966), the eponymous inventor of Zernike polynomials and winner of the Nobel Prize in physics for his invention of the phase-contrast microscope. And finally there are two pioneers in intraocular lens development, ESCRS co-founder Dutchman Cornelius Binkhorst MD, and Belgian Marie-José Tassignon MD, inventor of the bag-in-the-lens intraocular lens.
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