16. PERCEPTION – The Perception of Antoni van Leeuwenhoek
Using their own microscopes, members of the Society carried out his experiments and tried to see what he saw but failed. Based on this, they decided his observations were “illusions of his sight.” The unknown Hollander was a simple cloth merchant who lived in the city of Delft in South Holland. His name was Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (pronounced “layu wan hook”) and is best described by historian Bill Bryson this way: “Though he had little formal edu- cation and no background in science, he was a perceptive and dedicated observer and a technical genius.” He built microscopes many times more powerful than anyone thought possible, and with them, he discovered a world both unknown and unsuspected. If it could fit under his lens, Leeuwenhoek observed it and described it with great care: fly heads, whale muscle, skin flakes, plant tissues, animal hair. He was the first person to see the invisible that’s in us and surrounds us, from the red blood cells in our veins to the bacteria in our water.
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