Carl Zeiss

Carl Zeiss was born on 11 September 1816 in Germany and trained as a scientific instrument maker and optician. In 1846 he founded a workshop that would carry his name forward. He assembled a circle of practical and theoretical opticians and glassmakers, then entered a collaboration with Ernst Abbe that revolutionized both optical theory and the practical design of microscopes. To push those advances further, they brought in Otto Schott, who transformed optical glass manufacture itself. By the time Zeiss died on 3 December 1888, his firm had grown into one of the largest and most respected opti…