Ernst Abbe was a brilliant German mathematician and physicist who made several of the most important contributions to the design of lenses for optical microscopy. As a young boy, Abbe lived in an impoverished family where his father labored 16 hours a day to provide for his wife and children. Abbe worked his way through school by earning scholarships and with the help of his father's employer.

Abbe studied physics and mathematics as an undergraduate at the University of Jena and went to graduate school at the University of Göttingen, where he received a doctorate in thermodynamics. In 1863 Abbe joined the faculty at the University of Jena where he taught physics. He met Carl Zeiss in 1866 and became very interested in the optical problems surrounding mid-nineteenth century microscopy.