The earliest microscopes were designed to bend light and allow the human eye to focus on any given object, yet with limited capacity. Technological advances in science have allowed us to look closer into molecules themselves, helping us understand hidden worlds in moss, for example, where microscopic mites live in a hunter/prey relationship, and enabled us to investigate our own makeup as well. The living cells that form the building blocks of life could be viewed and studied. Scientists discovered the mitochondria that was mandatory for human evolution and were able to re-create the inside of a single living cell so as to understand the human chromosomes wrapped around the very molecular structures of DNA.
Microscopes evolved from lenses bending light to bending electrons, thus enabling humans to understand how atoms work to create matter through the results of interactions between electrons. This progress brought mankind further and deeper in its quest for knowledge, going beyond the atom to comprehend "superstrings" -- the theory that tiny strings of energy vibrate at different frequencies to create the protons and electrons that comprise the anatomy of nature.
Standing in a forest looking up at the trees provides a very different perspective than looking at that same forest from overhead. Size relativity in this case follows the perception that tiny organisms make up bigger organisms. The trees make up the forest, which in and of itself is its own thriving being. Technology has empowered us to take accurate measurements of things such as climate through satellites. But despite their powerful reach, they still don't allow us to predict things such as the weather with accuracy. Infrared readings can show us progress and help us forecast, but the "chaos theory" shows that we will never be able to predict weather patterns because it's impossible to know the path of a raindrop or where it will flow into a stream. This randomness has changed the way we think of the world. These larger views of the world that satellites provide have once again altered mankind's perspectives, only this time it's to consider the planet on a larger scale. Apollo 11 took to space to give human civilization a new viewpoint of the Earth as a tiny blue sphere. Therefore, in this instance, though satellites offer stunning views of our world never before seen, we still cannot fully understand what moves our climate will make next. We are once again limited.
The development of space probes such as Mariner gave us the first images of Mercury that had largely been unseen due to its proximity to the Sun in 1975, and Magellan transmitted the extreme surfaces of Venus for the first time. Human perspective was changed once more. We were able to learn about our solar system and our role within it. We learned how the sun keeps the solar system in place with its atoms so tightly packed as to give off heat and light. These inventions gave us insight into our neighbor Mars, whose volatile surface still amazes us to this day. The Gemini and Hubble telescopes are giving us closer and closer looks into the farthest reaches of the galaxy as they bring in images of stars and worlds thousands of light years away. These images are so distant that to look upon them is to see them in the past, before human civilization existed. These perceptions have opened our eyes to gaze upon the entire galaxy as a whole in order to pinpoint our location in relation to the scale of the universe as we sit in the "Orion Arm." Once again, the concept of one tiny organism within a much bigger one is demonstrated, showing Earth itself to be simply a molecule.