Abbe was amazing. He worked with Zeiss and a couple other glass manufacturers to systematize optics. One of his greatest accomplishments, beyond levelling up

Abbe was amazing. He worked with Zeiss and a couple other glass manufacturers to systematize optics. One of his greatest accomplishments, beyond levelling up glass quality, was developing an actual "theory of optics" which explained optical phenomena in terms of diffraction. He defined diffraction limited imaging, which meant that people were able to resolve details as fine as opticals can possibly allow (this has only recently been surpassed using Nobel-prize-winning technology). Abbe illumination, which is a way to set up your microscope's light paths to get optimal quality. He is also known for introducing the eight hour workday(!) and all sorts of employee/company innovations. My friend from grad school shows how to set up abbe illumination and talks/shows a bit about how to set up optical fourier transforms. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8Tqoo0S6gc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8Tqoo0S6gc If you want to draw a straight line of technology development that led to industrialization and an incredible increase in life quality, it goes right through Abbe (and Newton, Pasteur, Maudsley, and Rutherford). All of these people were absolute giants who saw far past the limitations of their day and continue to inspire new generations of geniuses who can take advantage of the amazing resources we have available today (thorlabs.com is a good example).