Week 20 History Essay

           This week I learned about the compound microscope, William Gilbert, the newspaper, and the telescope. The compound microscope is a microscope that uses light and multiple lenses to produce magnification. It was invented by the Dutch in 1590, and it made it possible to see very small things. The invention of the compound microscope has changed history in many ways, starting with Louis Pasteur and his discovery of bacteria. Next is Willian Gilbert, who was an English physicist and philosopher. He is most known for his book De Magnete, and he also came up with the word electricity. I think the most interesting thing about William Gilbert is that he was the first to say the earth is a giant magnet with iron at the core. The next day I learned about the newspaper. A newspaper is a publication that has news, information, and advertising in it. They are usually published every day or every week, and they have to meet four rules to be a newspaper: publicity, periodicity, currency, and universality. Many cultures in the past had things like newspapers, but they were only for the government or important people. We still use newspapers today, but many people look at online newspapers instead of paper ones. The last invention I learned about this week is the telescope. A telescope is similar to a microscope, because it uses light and lenses to see things close up. But microscopes help see tiny things, and telescopes are bigger and help see things far away like planets and stars. It was invented by several people, but Hans Lippershey gets the credit for inventing it. We still use very powerful telescopes every day today. I loved learning about these inventions and people this week. My favorite was the telescope, because I love astronomy. I always thought the telescope was invented by Galileo, and it was cool to learn who really invented it.