Southern Research Station

Title: Microscopy

Author: Moss, Patricia A.; Groom, Les

Date: 2001

Source: From the Handbook of Physical Testing of Paper, Volume 2, Second Edition Revised and Expanded, Edited by Jens Borch, M. Bruce Lyne, Richard E. Mark, and Charles C. Habeger, Jr.

Description: Microscopy is the study and interpretation of images produced by a microscope. "Interpretation" is the keyword, because the microscope enables one to see structures that are too small or too close together to be resolved by the unaided eye. (The human eye cannot separate two points or lines that are closer together than 0.1 mm.) it is important to remember that microscopy is not simply a matter of maginification and making objects larger, but of resolving features that may not have been seen before. Much microscopical analysis is subjective. Images cannot be interpreted intuitively on the basis of nonmicroscopic experience but required highly skilled microscopists with knowledge and practical experience of the materials they are examining and an "eye" for their subject. Correct interpretation can be achieved only when one has a thorough understanding of all the factors that influence the final image. These factors include instrumental effects, specimen preparation techniques, and microscope specimen interactions. Three-dimensional objects projected onto a two-dimensional image such as is the case with scanning electrononmicrographs, can be particularly confusing and difficult to interpret. Images of surface features can be illusory, and the observation, recorded by the seventeenth century microscopist Robert Hooke [128], that "it is exceedingly difficult in some objects to distinguish between it prominence and it depression between a shadow and a black stain, or a rellcction and a whiteness in a color" still holds true today.

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Citation

Moss, Patricia A.; Groom, Les  2001.  Microscopy.   From the Handbook of Physical Testing of Paper, Volume 2, Second Edition Revised and Expanded, Edited by Jens Borch, M. Bruce Lyne, Richard E. Mark, and Charles C. Habeger, Jr.