Talk:Confocal microscopy
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Patent Date is 1961. I changes the date from 1957 to 1961 for the reasons stated in Talk: Marvin Minsky.
Note as well the following excerpt from August 1994 Scientific American "Confocal Microscopy" by Dr. Jeffrey Lichtman:
- Confocal Microscopy; August 1994; Scientific American Magazine; by Lichtman; 6 Page(s)
- Marvin Minsky is famous as the father of artificial intelligence, but he was also the author of another signal achievement. In the 1950s, as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University, he built a revolutionary light microscope that enabled him to view successively deeper layers in a specimen with astonishing clarity, without first having to undertake the laborious task of cutting the specimen into thin sections. Minsky's invention did not earn wide acclaim at the time. In fact, when he patented his "double-focussing stage-scanning microscope" in 1961, few people understood what it could do. During the 17-year life of the patent, he received no royalties, and no instruments of similar design were manufactured. Unappreciated for his foray into optics, Minsky moved on to other challenges, leaving his prototype to rust in a corner of his basement.
- Thirty years later his approach--otherwise known as confocal microscopy--has caught on with a vengeance. Indeed, the technology is proving to be one of the most exciting advances in optical microscopy in this century. The extent to which current interest was sparked by rediscovery of Minsky's early work or by independent reinvention of his concept by others is not completely clear. Nevertheless, the happy result is that scores of different kinds of confocal microscopes are now available--in forms that range from rudimentary to baroque. Whether researchers need to image the ultrastructure of potato chips or computer chips, the diseased eye or the developing brain, confocal microscopy is allowing them to see their subjects quite literally in a new light.
It seems this article should be read and incorporated into this wiki. --SafeLibraries 03:37, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
