Glimpses of the Independent Scholars

I'm working on the da Vinci profile. It's coming along, but a couple of my books are still in storage and there are some quotes I really want to use in this very special biography. After all, only the best for Leonardo. He will arrive when he is ready.

These mystery lifelong learners or independent scholars--who are they? Among them you will find:

• A physicist who studied just "for the pleasure of finding things out"
• A surgeon who has operated on more than 60,000 patients
• A wandering man who wrote 86 novels
• A forgotten giant with a vision of global ecology and human fellowship

They are waiting in the wings and will be presented shortly. As to the rest, they will arrive when they are ready.

Leeuwenhoek: Independent Scholar Part II

Letters to the Royal Society

Reinier de Graaf, Leeuwenhoek’s friend and fellow townsman was very interested in his talent for making lenses. He was responsible for the first communication of van Leeuwenhoek's work to the Royal Society of London (the oldest public institution devoted to the pursuit of scientific research). On April 28, 1673, de Graaf wrote to Henry Oldenburg, the Society’s first secretary and one of its founding members:

“. . . I am writing to tell you that a certain most ingenious person here, named Leeuwenhoek, has devised microscopes which far surpass those which we have hitherto seen…The enclosed letter from him, wherein he describes certain things which he has observed more accurately than previous authors, will afford you a sample of his work. …and if it please you and you would test the skill of this most diligent man and give him encouragement, then send him a letter containing your suggestions, and proposing to him more difficult problems of the same kind.”

Leeuwenhoek’s first letter to the Royal Society contained descriptions of fungi and the sting and mouthparts of a bee, among other things. His letter was well received. Oldenburg translated it and submitted it for what scientists and scholars today call peer review. It was published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society which continues to be published today. Many of his first observations followed in the footsteps of ideas from Hooke’s Micrographia.

Ford tells us that fourteen months later, on June 1, 1674, Leeuwenhoek sent his fourth letter to the Society, a folio of six pages. The last sheet of the letter had a small envelope pasted to it that contained four smaller paper packets. The packets contained finely cut sections that Leeuwenhoek had prepared by his own hand for the interest of the Royal Society. These were the first four packets that Ford discovered after 304 years.

Leeuwenhoek almost lost his credibility when he sent his observations of microscopic single celled organisms. Their existence at that time was not even imagined. It caused a sensation. This letter, dated October 9, 1676, is often called the pepper-water letter or “letter on protozoa.” It describes what he saw over time in a series of experiments with different peppers dissolved in water. Even though he had already established his reliability, the Society had to send observers to verify that he was indeed seeing what he reported and could still be trusted. After he was vindicated, he was made a full member of the Royal Society in 1680.

On September 17, 1683, Leeuwenhoek wrote to the Society about his observations on the plaque from his teeth, "I then most always saw, with great wonder, that in the said matter there were many very little living animalcules, very prettily a-moving. . . had a very strong and swift motion, and shot through the water."

Work Continues

Recognition and fame did not change Leeuwenhoek. He continued to work with the same enthusiasm throughout his life. At age 85 he wrote, “Tis my intention to inquire into these marvelous structures more narrowly, for my own pleasure.”

For fifty years, up until the weeks before his death on August 26, 1723, at age 90, he sent his letters to the Royal Society regularly, along with drawings prepared by a draftsman. It is believed that he wrote more than 500 letters to the Royal Society and other scientific institutions.

He recorded his observations and explanations in his diary in great detail. He wrote in simple language, as if talking to a friend. The detailed descriptions of his preparation steps seemed to be that of a trained scientist. He observed and set forth conclusions that he believed were supported by the data. If he was later proved wrong, he was honest and willing to change his mind. It seems he wanted only to search for the truth objectively which is the hallmark of a scientist.

So we come full circle back to Ford’s discovery of specimens which prove that Antonie van Leeuwenhoek’s real legacy is his truly scientific approach to research and his love of learning, not just the lenses he made and used. He brought into view a whole new world of tiny “animalcules” as he called them, which had never been seen before. Think where we would be if we did not know about the world he saw—if he had not pursued his life’s passion. His words say it best:

In a 1715 letter he noted: "Some go to make money out of science, or to get a reputation in the learned world. But in lens-grinding and discovering things hidden from our sight, these count for nought. And I am satisfied too that not one man in a thousand is capable of such study, because it needs much time ... and you must always keep thinking about these things if you are to get any results. And over and above all, most men are not curious to know: nay, some even make no bones about saying, What does it matter whether we know this or not?"

Are these not the words of the ultimate lifelong learner and independent scholar?

Leeuwenhoek: Independent Scholar Part I

Our story of Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, “the Father of Microbiology” and lifelong learner, begins not with his birth in 1632, but in 1981 when biologist Brian J. Ford discovered some of Leeuwenhoek’s original specimens, lying forgotten among his letters at the Royal Society in London.

Those specimens were found to be in great condition, extremely well preserved, so that Ford was able to carry out observations with a range of modern microscopes, as well as the original Leeuwenhoek microscope in the Netherlands at the Utrecht University Museum.

What Ford saw was not only the finest detail in the specimens, but the extraordinary work of Leeuwenhoek in the preparation of the specimens.

On the occasion of an honorary degree awarded to him, Leeuwenhoek wrote to the faculty at the University of Louvain, on June 12th, 1716, “My work, which I have done for many a year, was not pursued in order to gain the praise which I now enjoy, but chiefly from a craving after knowledge. ….whenever I found anything remarkable, I have thought it my duty to put down my discovery on paper, so that all ingenious people might be informed thereof.”

Can you imagine how he would have felt to know that those “ingenious people” lived in the 20th century and beyond?

So how did we get to Ford’s discovery more than 300 years after the death of this gentleman scientist who succeeded in making some of the most important discoveries in biology?

Preparation for a Life’s Study

Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (layu-wen-hook) was born in Delft, the Netherlands, on October 24, 1632. His family belonged to the prosperous middle class of hard-working citizens which was typical of the Golden Age of the Dutch Republic. Little is known of Leeuwenhoek's early life, but it seems very certain that he did not have an in-depth education in science. In 1648, when he was just16 years old, he secured an apprenticeship with a Scottish cloth merchant in Amsterdam.

After six years or so he returned to Delft to start his own fabric business. He purchased a house and an adjoining shop where he spent the rest of his life.

In 1668 Leeuwenhoek had traveled to London, where it is thought that he must have seen and been inspired by a copy of Robert Hooke’s Micrographia.

By 1670, at the age 39, he was financially secure enough to devote his time to research with the microscopes he created. Leeuwenhoek would have used magnifying lenses to examine the quality of cloth he bought--but now he was ready to pursue microscopy in earnest. We don’t know what his independent study consisted of up to this point in his life, but from this time forward his course is documented in his journals and in his letter to the Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge.

Leeuwenhoek is thought to have made over 500 microscopes, of which nine have survived today. Probably all of Leeuwenhoek's instruments were simply powerful magnifying glasses. Compared to modern microscopes, they are extremely simple. They use only one lens, mounted in a tiny hole in the brass plate that is the body of the instrument. Amazingly, the entire microscope is only 3-4 inches long.

The compound microscope was invented in the late 1500’s. These instruments had been used to make many important discoveries. However, they only magnified objects less than 30 times normal size. Leeuwenhoek was able to make lenses that magnified almost 300 times and some say as much as 500. We don’t know how he achieved this because he never revealed his secrets.

To be continued . . .

Sala delle Asse in Milan

Just had to share this "painting" I discovered while trying to find where da Vinci mentioned tree rings. (Still working on that, but you never know what you may find when going on one of these adventures.)

This is actually a fresco on the ceiling and vault in Sforza's castle in Milan. It's intriguing because according to Loadstar's Lair, which I found in my "trees and da Vinci" search, it is made up of eighteen willow (one meaning of vinci is willow) trees. By the way, this is a beautiful website with many of Leonardo da Vinci's paintings and their history, plus a timeline and biographical information.