History of using the optical microscope in Hungarian geology

Abstract

You can’t know for sure who and when they made magnifying tools for the first time. But when people noticed and experienced the effects of such certain natural phenomena, and they were able to produce the right instrument, human curiosity about the wonders of infinitely large, distant, and infinitely small worlds, it has led to incredible technical progress in this area too. In the present work, we will outline this process until the end of the 1800s, started from the lenses made 4–5000 years ago of simple rock crystal, glass, or a container full of water, to the simpler, then more and more complex microscopes giving more beautiful image. Than we get to the penetration of polarization microscope and petrography, and the activities of gratest Hungarian geologists, Miksa Hantken, József Szabó and Vilmos Zsigmondy