` Todays lectures and presentations were my first experiences into the wolrd of non-elementary microscopy. I had seen pictures taken by all the different microscopes shown to the group but had never really thought about or had any interest in the devises. The microscope that interests me the most is the Scanning Electron Microscope because it can take the most precise images. The reason it can take such precise images is because it uses a beam of electrons instead of light, which is the method employed by traditional microscopes. The electrons have a smaller wavelength than light letting it focus on a smaller probe. The guy who presented them SEM was pretty cool. He splashed around liquid nitrogen from his 5 million dollar freezing machine onto the floor. He also showed us how it worked. I forgot how quickly it had to freeze things so that crystals don’t form but it was very fast. After that we went into the room with the microscope. A student was in there looking at a cell sample. The picture of the cell he was looking at wasn’t very exciting to me, but to him it apparently meant something. I suppose I am just not learned enough for such academic feats.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanning_electron_microscope
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-photon_excitation_microscopy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microscopy
http://www.ebsstore.com/product.aspx?pid=853
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_nitrogen
