Note that the telescope and microscope (based on the principle of putting two lenses, not just one, in front of the eye, are attributed respectively to Galileo Galilei and Anton van Leeuvenhoek in the first third of the 17th century.
Actually, I surmise that, in a dystopian future, knowledge of Fermat's Principle (later 17th Century) would allow people to design optical instruments more easily than by the trial and error that was probably involved in the construction of spectacles in the middle ages. Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
Galileo doesn't seem to have invented the telescope so much as improved it, used it and - most of all - marketed it.
Likewise with the microscope.
A good rule of thumb seems to be that if 'everyone knows' someone invented something, it's more likely that someone else did - and no one has ever heard of them.
A case of the geek shall inherit the earth?
