Better microscopes
I heard recently that a Nobel Prize had been given for advances in light microscopy, and wondered why we would be fooling around with light after determining some time back that really detailed pictures required electromagnetic radiation with smaller wavelengths. The answer turns out to be that those smaller wavelengths really tear up whatever we're trying to look at, particularly living cells. The new microscopy uses some kind of system of multiple passes that makes possible fantastic videos of living processes such as cell division, as you can see in the remarkable videos here.
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3 comments:
Astronomy's very large baseline telescopy adapted to microscopy?
A linear arrangement adapted to provide interference patterns of the things being looked at?
Very cool, in any event.
Eric Hines
Ask James.
Very interesting, Brother.
However, a German scientist living here in the USA has been building white light, optical microscopes with a resolution of 100 nanometers.
Here is the website. I've been lusting for a Greyfield Ergonom 4000U for about three years.
Being that a trinocular equipped 4000U, with a suitable camera, was well up in the six figures, I was not holding my breath.
As you can see at the website, the German gentleman has retired, but the engineer who did all of his hardware work, and is much younger, has stayed on. They will be offering a new type of scope called a SeeNano, it seems, but at a "more realistic" price point.
Hallelujah! There's hope for me yet!!
Also, google the name Royal Rife and/or Universal Microscope (he designed and built). All this, nearly a century ago. He is reported to have seen an individual virus requiring a resolution less than or equal to 100 nanometers.
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