An Introduction to the Main Ideas of the Cell Theory

The cell theroy is made up of three main ideas:

1. All organisms are composed of one or more cells. An organism may be a single cell, such as the organisms Van Leewenhoek saw in water. Others, like most of the plants and animals with which you are most familiar, are multicellular, or made up of cells.
2. The cell is the basic unit of organization of organisms. Although organisms can become very large and complex, such as humans, dogs, and trees, the cell remains the simplest, most basic component of any organism.
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3. All cells come from preexisting cells. Before the cell theroy, no one knew how cells were formed, where they came from, or what determined the type of cell they became. The cell theroy states that a cell divides to form two identical cells.

The cell Theroy

Robert Hooke was an English scientist who lived at the same time as Van Leeuwenhoek. Hooke used a compound light microscope to study cork, the dead cells of oak bark.

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In cork, Hooke observed small geometric shapes. Hooke gave these box shaped structures the name cells because they reminded him of small rooms monks lived in at a moastery. Cells are the basic building blocks of all living things. Hooke published his drawings and descriptions, which encouraged other scientist to search for cells in the materials they were studing.

Several scientist extended Hooke's observations and drew some important conclusions. In the 1830s, the German scientist Matthias Schleiden observed a variety of plants and concluded that all plants are composed of cells.

Another German scientist Theodore Schwann, made similar observations and conclusions of theses scientists are summerized as the cell theory, one of the fundamental ideas of modern biology.