German industrialist who gained a worldwide reputation as a manufacturer of fine optical instruments.

In 1846 Zeiss opened a workshop in Jena for producing microscopes and other optical instruments. Realizing that improvements in optical instruments depended on advances in optical theory, he engaged as research worker Ernst Abbe (Abbe, Ernst), a physics and mathematics lecturer (later professor) at the University of Jena (Jena glass), who in 1866 became Zeiss's partner. They engaged Otto Schott, a chemist, who developed about 100 new kinds of optical glass and numerous types of heat-resistant glass. After the death of Zeiss, Abbe donated the Zeiss firm and his share in the glassworks to the Carl Zeiss Foundation. In 1923 Schott added his share in the glassworks to the foundation. In 1945 U.S. forces evacuated the board of management and about 100 scientists and technicians of the Carl Zeiss firm (Jena) to West Germany, where it was firmly reestablished.