Microscopy

Question 1

What are the different parts of a Light Microscope? (Hint: There are 10 parts)

Answer 1

The Base, The Arm, Light Source, Stage, Microscope Slide, Objective Lenses, Eyepiece Lens, Body Tube, Coarse Focusing Knob and Fine Focusing Knob

Question 2

In Microscopy, what does the term “object” mean?

Answer 2

The real object or sample that you’re looking at.

Question 3

In Microscopy, what does the term “image” mean?

Answer 3

The image that we see when we look down the microscope.

Question 4

How do Light Microscopes work?

Answer 4

The light from the room is going to hit the mirror, and it will be reflected upwards through the object that we want to look at. Then, it will pass through one of the objective lenses, then through the eyepiece lens, and finally into our eye.

The idea of this is that lenses will spread out the light rays, so that the image we see is far larger than the actual object.

Question 5

What does the term “magnification” mean?

Answer 5

How many times larger the image is than the object.

For example, if the image appeared 1000x larger than the object, the magnification would be x1000.

Question 6

What is the equation for magnification?

Answer 6

Magnification = Image Size/Object Size

Question 7

In Microscopy, what does the term “resolution” mean?

Answer 7

The shortest distance between two points on an object, that can still be distinguished as two separate entities.

In other words, it is a measure of how detailed the image is.

So, the higher the resolution, the more detail you will be able to see on the image without it being blurred.

Question 8

What are some differences between Light Microscopes and Electron Microscopes?

Answer 8

Anything listed:

Light Microscopes are cheap and Electron Microscopes are expensive
Light Microscopes are easier to use than Electron Microscopes, Electron Microscopes are only used by scientists in laboratories
Light Microscopes rely on light, but Electron Microscopes use electrons instead of light
Light Microscopes have a resolution limited to 0.2um, but Electron Microscopes’ maximum resolution is 0.1nm, meaning that Electron Microscopes have 2000x better resolution than Light Microscopes
Light Microscopes are not able to study sub-cellular structures, however Electron Microscopes can