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Carl Zeiss AG

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Carl Zeiss AG
Carl-Zeiss-Strasse 22
73447 Oberkochen, Germany
Tel. +49-7364-20-0
Fax +49-7364-6808

Type: Subsidiary
On the web: http://www.zeiss.de
Employees: 11,049
Employee growth: (1.8%)

Carl Zeiss puts things into sharp focus. The company manufactures a variety of optical and related products, for use in the medical equipment, industrial, and lifestyle industries. The company's products include microscopes, precision measuring systems, eyeglass lenses and frames, camera lenses, surveying equipment, and riflescope lenses. Its microscopy systems are used for biomolecular research and drug development. Other products include industrial measurement equipment and lenses used in planetariums and astronomical instruments. About 80% of the company's sales are outside Germany. Independent foundation Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung is the sole owner of the company and its sister firm, Schott AG.

Key numbers for fiscal year ending September, 2006:
Sales: $3,086.4M
One year growth: 15.6%
Net income: $211.6M
Income growth: 37.9%

Officers:
President, CEO, and Labor Director: Dieter Kurz
Member, Executive Board and CFO: Michael Kaschke
Member, Executive Board; President and CEO, Vision International: Norbert Gorny

Competitors:
Corning
Nikon
Olympus

 
 

(born Sept. 11, 1816, Weimar, Thuringian States — died Dec. 3, 1888, Jena) German industrialist. In 1846 Zeiss opened a workshop for producing microscopes and other optical instruments. He later formed a partnership with the physicist and mathematician Ernst Abbe (1840 – 1905). The chemist Otto Schott developed about 100 new kinds of optical glass and numerous types of heat-resistant glass for the company. After Zeiss's death, Abbe donated the firm and his share in the glassworks to the Carl Zeiss Foundation; in 1923 Schott added his share in the glassworks.

For more information on Carl Zeiss, visit Britannica.com.

 

Zeiss, Carl (1816-88), German manufacturer of microscopes and other precision optical and mechanical instruments, who founded his firm in Jena in 1846. Zeiss was amongst the first optical firms to establish a research and computational department and employed Ernst Abbe, who became a partner in 1875. Abbe designed a series of optics based on mathematical modelling and from 1881 collaborated with Otto Schott (1851-1935) in the scientific manufacture of optical glass for the Zeiss works. Another key figure was the lens designer Paul Rudolph. After Zeiss's death Abbe took over the firm, but in 1896 transferred ownership to a foundation, the Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung. This later became the majority shareholder in the optical conglomerate Zeiss Ikon AG, founded in 1926.

The firm developed a number of classic photographic optics including the Planar (1896), Tessar (1902), and Sonnar (1932) lenses, and many cameras incorporated Zeiss optics, including models by Zeiss Ikon, Hasselblad, Kodak, and Franke & Heidecke (Rollei). From an early stage, Zeiss lenses were also made under licence. The company's T lens coating patented in 1936 helped reduce reflections on glass surfaces.

Zeiss remained relatively unscathed during the Second World War, but in 1945 all the factories except those in Stuttgart fell under Russian control, and US forces evacuated plant, machinery, and 126 staff from Jena to Stuttgart. The Zeiss optical works resumed production in Oberkochen from 1946 while the Zeiss and Schott works in Jena became state owned under the VEB prefix. In 1995 the two entities were finally reunited under the Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung. Today Zeiss continues to manufacture professional photographic optics and a range of scientific and specialized optical equipment.

— Michael Pritchard

Bibliography

  • Rohr, M. v., Zur Geschichte der Zeissischen Werkstätte (1936)
 
Wikipedia: Carl Zeiss
For the company with the same name, see Zeiss.
Carl Zeiss in middle age.
Enlarge
Carl Zeiss in middle age.

Carl Zeiss (September 11, 1816December 3, 1888) was an optician commonly known for the company he founded, Zeiss. Zeiss himself also made a few contributions to lens manufacturing that have aided the modern production of lenses. Raised in Weimar, Germany, he became a notable lens maker in the 1840s when he created high quality lenses that were "wide open", or in other words, had a very large aperture range that allowed for very clear images. He did this in the city of Jena at a self opened workshop, where he started his lens making career. At first his lenses were only used in the production of microscopes but when cameras were invented, his company (Zeiss) began manufacturing high quality lenses for cameras. He died in Jena.

Youth

Zeiss began his life in pre-imperial Germany where he went to a grammar school, and undertook apprenticeship under Dr. Friedrich Körne, mechanic and supplier to the court. He later attended lectures in math, experimental physics, anthropology, mineralogy and optics at Jena University. After seven years he opened a small workshop by himself with hardly any tools. He made many lenses but had little recognition until 1847 when he hired his first apprentice. The very same year his former master, Dr. Körne died, inspiring Zeiss to devote his life to working in the area of microscopes.

Carl Zeiss
Carl Zeiss

Life

Carl Zeiss in late middle age.
Enlarge
Carl Zeiss in late middle age.

In 1847 Carl Zeiss started making microscopes full-time. His first innovation was making simpler microscopes that only used one lens, and were therefore only intended for dissecting work. He sold around 23 of them in his first year of production. He soon decided that he needed a new challenge so he began making compound microscopes. He first created the Stand I which went to market in 1857.

In 1861 he was awarded a gold medal at the Thuringain Industrial Exhibition for his designs. They were considered to be among the best scientific instruments in Germany. By this point he had about 20 people working under him with his business still growing all the time. In 1866 the Zeiss workshop sold their 1000th microscope. He then continued on for a few years, and assumed he had reached his fullest potential, but he met Dr. Ernst Abbe, a physicist that he joined up with in 1872. Their combined efforts lead to the discovery of the Abbe sine condition.

During this period, Zeiss made his best lenses that he ever had up to this point. Theoretically, the Abbe sine condition could greatly improve just how good lens quality could get. The problem was, there wasn't a type of glass that was strong enough to fully test the theory out.

Luckily, Dr. Ernst Abbe soon met Otto Schott, a 30 year old glass chemist who had just received his doctorate. They collaborated and soon produced a new type glass in 1886 that could fully use the Abbe sine condition. This new type of glass paved the way for a new class of microscope objective: the apochromatic (often abbreviated 'apo'). Zeiss used water immersion to form a compensating eyepiece which produced images with little or no color distortion.

That was what Zeiss had tried to make during his whole life and it was quite timely that he achieved his goal when he did. A mere two years after he made his amazing new microscope, he died of natural causes on December 3, 1888.

His son had entered the business with him, but retired soon after Carl Zeiss's death. The business was incorporated as the Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung in 1889, and it gained an international reputation for the manufacture of optical instruments of all kinds.

Publications

  • Auerbach, Das Zeisswerk und die Karl Zeiss-Stiftung in Jena (third edition, Jena, 1907)

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Hoover's Profile. ©2008 Hoover's, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Photography Encyclopedia. The Oxford Companion to the Photograph. Copyright © 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Carl Zeiss" Read more

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