Question

One of the results of the inventions of the microscope and telescope is that it expanded the world as people knew it. Distant stars and microscopic organisms previously unseen and unknown provided a wealth of knowledge to scholars. Which of these statements is true regarding these two inventions?
A.
Image resolution has advanced as far as it can ever go.
B.
Telescopic lenses, found in Greece, date back 2000 years.
C.
Lenses in microscopes and telescopes can form perfect images.
D.
Galileo made important improvements to both instruments.

Answer 1

D.

Galileo significantly improved the telescope (higher magnification, use for astronomy) and also worked on and improved early microscopes (his "occhiolino" and related instruments). The other statements are false: resolution continues to improve (A), simple ancient lenses weren’t telescopes in the modern sense (B is misleading), and real lenses suffer aberrations and diffraction so they cannot form mathematically perfect images (C).