Microscopy Yesterday, Today and the Future

Extract

With the approach of a new century everyone is getting nostalgic; we just can't resist reflecting on the past and envisioning the future. This struck me with renewed passion on 26 January 1999 when my latest patent (with co-inventor Steven H, Vogel) on a new Confocal Microspectrometer System was issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark office, What resonated in my mind was the sage advice I received from an admired and distinguished scientist nearly forty years ago, The learned professor opined, "Why do you want to be a microscopist? That's old stuff. No scientific discoveries can be made in microscopy; it is just not a research field. Microscopists never amount to more than glorified technicians". Since then I have seen Professor Dr, J, S, Ploem develop Epf Fluorescence, which revolutionized cytology and expanded the way we think of fluorescence microscopy, I have seen the introduction of the scanning electron microscope, energy dispersive x-ray spectrometers, ESCA, Auger, acoustic microscopes, scanning probe microscopy, confocal microscopy, quantitative image analysis, video-microscopy, FT-IR microspectrometry and many more.