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Article is a bit breathless. > and can be viewed using a microscope capable of 1000x magnification—a technology that has been available for hundreds of years.

Article is a bit breathless. > and can be viewed using a microscope capable of 1000x magnification—a technology that has been available for hundreds of years. I don't think so; maybe 100 years. To achieve 1,000x magnification with an optical microscope, you need oil (or some other fluid with a refractive index similar to that of the lens) between the objective lens and the subject. I believe the maximum theoretical magnification you can achieve with an optical microscope is about 1,400x. The limit is imposed by the minimum wavelength of visible light.

devjab 3y ago
Are you sure? I ask because the Dutch were wild by the end of the seventeenth century, people like Antoni van Leeuwenhoek achieved 500x magnification with a single lens microscope as an example. If you wonder why I know this, it’s because this was when the first bacteria are believed to have been observed. Leading off to the next part that I’m not so sure of, but the single lens microscope was/is terrible to use, and this lead to the first compound microscopes being build shortly there after. I believe the practical limit of those is 2,500x magnification though I’m not sure when that was made possible, but many of the ones we have in education today range from 400-1000x magnification (mostly down to cost and care of the institution).
- WillPostForFood 3y ago
  I've looked at a couple sources and they all say 250x: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9186497/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9186497/ https://www.nsf.gov/news/speeches/colwell/rc01_anatlesson/tsld005.htm https://www.nsf.gov/news/speeches/colwell/rc01_anatlesson/ts...
  - devjab 3y ago
    You seem to be right: https://denstoredanske.lex.dk/Anton_van_Leeuwenhoek https://denstoredanske.lex.dk/Anton_van_Leeuwenhoek Says 275x. I guess my education lied to me.
- denton-scratch 3y ago
  > 2,500x magnification You can, of course, magnify as much as you want; but you won't see more detail. "Junior" microscopes often brag of a 1000x magnification; but that only works if the lenses are really good, and in that kind of microscope, they aren't. You need 1000x to see bacteria. Bacteria are really boring to look at; they appear as undifferentiated spheres or rods. And even then you can't see them at all without fixing and staining. Single-lens microscopes suffer from spherical abberation (only the centre of the image is in focus) and chromatic abberation (everything has rainbow fringes around it). These problems are worse with greater magnification. As far as I can tell, the best "mass-market" compound lenses these days are made in China. Source: I bought my son a microscope a few months ago; he said he wanted to see bacteria. I hoped a "junior" 'scope would get me off the hook, but I consulted suppliers, and they warned me off, and told me quite a lot about how to choose a 'scope. I also bought him a set of stains and solvents, including a gram-staining kit. I did a fair bit of research before I spent money.
  - monetus 3y ago
    Happen to blog about it, or have some links?
    - denton-scratch 3y ago
      I bought from these people: http://www.brunelmicroscopes.co.uk/ http://www.brunelmicroscopes.co.uk/ They have some good pages on choosing a microscope. There are sites dealing with amateur microscopy that have many pages of advice on setting-up and using microscopes, and on staining and slide preparation. I don't blog, at least not at the moment.
  - dekhn 3y ago
    tardigrades are far more interesting to look at than bacteria. Basically all the tiny animacules. You need no more than 5X-10X and are quite easy to see when they're still alive.
    - denton-scratch 3y ago
bloak 3y ago
Interesting. Modern optical microscopes, even cheap ones, do 1000x, though I seem to remember, from playing with a cheapish one, that it was very hard to get a worthwhile image at 1000x. Amazon.co.uk has a microscope for £54.59 that does "1600X" ... "for Kids"! The one I played with wasn't that cheap! According to random online articles, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) achieved 275x and a few of his instruments have survived until today, in museums, I presume.
- Zigurd 3y ago
  1600X seems like the lumens rating of Chinese bike lights on Amazon.
  - jimduk 3y ago
    The math for cheap amazon microscopes is often based on the ratio of a digital image. So use a 60" monitor rather than 30" you have an extra 2x magnification. But not better resolution!
nosianu 3y ago
Here's a Physics-Stackexchange answer with a little more detail i support: You can go higher but it won't help you because you won't see more. https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/38146/optical-microscope-magnification-limits https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/38146/optical-mi... > ... > So for violet light λ=405nm, and good lens with oil immersion (NA=1.25), you can have resolution 197nm. > So, in conclusion, optical microscopes are limited to ~x1500 because going any further does not resolve smaller details. The comments below the answer add additional details. Related Wikipedia article (Diffraction-limited system): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction-limited_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction-limited_system There are various "tricks" to achieve more -- "Super-resolution microscopy" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-resolution_microscopy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-resolution_microscopy > Super-resolution microscopy is a series of techniques in optical microscopy that allow such images to have resolutions higher than those imposed by the diffraction limit.
ilyt 3y ago
I mean if it was "so far we haven't found evidence of any optical instrument of that magnitude available at that time", fair enough, but you're suggesting people didn't had oil few hundred years ago...
- denton-scratch 3y ago
  Not at all. But there's no point in going to oil-immersion microscopy, if you haven't yet invented compound lenses. Those are a 19th-century development.

devjab 3y ago

Are you sure? I ask because the Dutch were wild by the end of the seventeenth century, people like Antoni van Leeuwenhoek achieved 500x magnification with a single lens microscope as an example. If you wonder why I know this, it’s because this was when the first bacteria are believed to have been observed. Leading off to the next part that I’m not so sure of, but the single lens microscope was/is terrible to use, and this lead to the first compound microscopes being build shortly there after. I believe the practical limit of those is 2,500x magnification though I’m not sure when that was made possible, but many of the ones we have in education today range from 400-1000x magnification (mostly down to cost and care of the institution).

WillPostForFood 3y ago
I've looked at a couple sources and they all say 250x: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9186497/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9186497/ https://www.nsf.gov/news/speeches/colwell/rc01_anatlesson/tsld005.htm https://www.nsf.gov/news/speeches/colwell/rc01_anatlesson/ts...
- devjab 3y ago
  You seem to be right: https://denstoredanske.lex.dk/Anton_van_Leeuwenhoek https://denstoredanske.lex.dk/Anton_van_Leeuwenhoek Says 275x. I guess my education lied to me.
denton-scratch 3y ago
> 2,500x magnification You can, of course, magnify as much as you want; but you won't see more detail. "Junior" microscopes often brag of a 1000x magnification; but that only works if the lenses are really good, and in that kind of microscope, they aren't. You need 1000x to see bacteria. Bacteria are really boring to look at; they appear as undifferentiated spheres or rods. And even then you can't see them at all without fixing and staining. Single-lens microscopes suffer from spherical abberation (only the centre of the image is in focus) and chromatic abberation (everything has rainbow fringes around it). These problems are worse with greater magnification. As far as I can tell, the best "mass-market" compound lenses these days are made in China. Source: I bought my son a microscope a few months ago; he said he wanted to see bacteria. I hoped a "junior" 'scope would get me off the hook, but I consulted suppliers, and they warned me off, and told me quite a lot about how to choose a 'scope. I also bought him a set of stains and solvents, including a gram-staining kit. I did a fair bit of research before I spent money.
- monetus 3y ago
  Happen to blog about it, or have some links?
  - denton-scratch 3y ago
    I bought from these people: http://www.brunelmicroscopes.co.uk/ http://www.brunelmicroscopes.co.uk/ They have some good pages on choosing a microscope. There are sites dealing with amateur microscopy that have many pages of advice on setting-up and using microscopes, and on staining and slide preparation. I don't blog, at least not at the moment.
- dekhn 3y ago
  tardigrades are far more interesting to look at than bacteria. Basically all the tiny animacules. You need no more than 5X-10X and are quite easy to see when they're still alive.
  - denton-scratch 3y ago

bloak 3y ago

Interesting. Modern optical microscopes, even cheap ones, do 1000x, though I seem to remember, from playing with a cheapish one, that it was very hard to get a worthwhile image at 1000x. Amazon.co.uk has a microscope for £54.59 that does "1600X" ... "for Kids"! The one I played with wasn't that cheap! According to random online articles, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) achieved 275x and a few of his instruments have survived until today, in museums, I presume.

Zigurd 3y ago
1600X seems like the lumens rating of Chinese bike lights on Amazon.
- jimduk 3y ago
  The math for cheap amazon microscopes is often based on the ratio of a digital image. So use a 60" monitor rather than 30" you have an extra 2x magnification. But not better resolution!

nosianu 3y ago

Here's a Physics-Stackexchange answer with a little more detail i support: You can go higher but it won't help you because you won't see more. https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/38146/optical-microscope-magnification-limits https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/38146/optical-mi... > ... > So for violet light λ=405nm, and good lens with oil immersion (NA=1.25), you can have resolution 197nm. > So, in conclusion, optical microscopes are limited to ~x1500 because going any further does not resolve smaller details. The comments below the answer add additional details. Related Wikipedia article (Diffraction-limited system): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction-limited_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction-limited_system There are various "tricks" to achieve more -- "Super-resolution microscopy" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-resolution_microscopy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-resolution_microscopy > Super-resolution microscopy is a series of techniques in optical microscopy that allow such images to have resolutions higher than those imposed by the diffraction limit.

ilyt 3y ago

I mean if it was "so far we haven't found evidence of any optical instrument of that magnitude available at that time", fair enough, but you're suggesting people didn't had oil few hundred years ago...

denton-scratch 3y ago
Not at all. But there's no point in going to oil-immersion microscopy, if you haven't yet invented compound lenses. Those are a 19th-century development.