Nobel Prizes
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	Robert Koch, Nobel Prize for Medicine, 1905. Koch is considered the founder of modern bacteriology. In the eighteen-eighties, the country doctor discovered the bacilli that caused tuberculosis and cholera. In a letter to Carl Zeiss he wrote, "A large part of my success I owe to your excellent microscopes". In 1904, he received the 10,000th Zeiss objective, a homogeneous immersion system, as a present.
	Robert Koch Richard Zsigmondy
	Richard Zsigmondy, Nobel Prize for Chemistry, 1925. As a professor at Göttingen, Zsigmondy conducted pioneering research in colloid chemistry. He invented the ultramicroscope in 1903, and two types of membrane filters in 1918 and 1922. Ultramicroscopy after Siedentopf and Zsigmondy makes visible submicroscopic particles whose linear extension is below the microscope's resolution limit.
	Frits Zernike, Nobel Prize for Physics, 1953. The Dutch physicist, when experimenting with reflection gratings in 1930, discovered that he could observe the phase position of each ray, and sought to utilize the effect for microscopy. Together with Zeiss he developed the first phase-contrast microscope, the prototype of which was made in 1936. It allowed the examination of living cells without harmful chemical staining.
	Frits Zernike Manfred Eigen
	Manfred Eigen, Nobel Prize for Chemistry, 1967. The molecular biologist and director of the Max Planck Institute in Gšttingen developed a method of keeping track of extremely fast chemical and biochemical processes. In a joint effort, Eigen, his Swedish colleague Rudolf Riegler and Carl Zeiss succeeded in 1993 to create ConfoCor, the first commercial fluorescence correlation spectrometer.
	Erwin Neher, Nobel Prize for Medicine, 1991. Together with Professor Sakman, he discovered the fundamental mechanism of communication between cells. Their studies included electrophysiological examinations of ion channels by means of the patch clamp technique.
	Erwin Neher Bert Sakmann
	Bert Sakman, Nobel Prize for Medicine, 1991. For visual reference, the two scientists of the Max Planck Institute required images of exceptional contrast and high optical resolution. These were obtained exclusively with Zeiss microscopes specially designed for this application.
	Borders are disappearing, limits are being exceeded and frontiers shifted. New dimensions open up which would have been considered science fiction years ago. The potential of what is technically possible in microscopy is far from exhausted yet. Telemicroscopy around the globe. Digital communication at light velocity. Series of high-resolution, high-contrast, real-time 3D microimages... All this, and more, is in the offing. Carl Zeiss, as ever, anticipates the future.