I think it was rather fitting that on this day early into our Art-Sci camp we learned about microscopes. After all, it is only with the knowledge and understanding of microscopes that I believe one can truly appreciate how our world functions in its extremely basic level.
This is how an atom looks like pictured my text book
This is the kind of zoomed up picture that I saw.
I came to this conclusion as I stood in Professor Sergei’s room, gazing at his computer screen. Produced on the unassumingly ordinary screen was an image that amazed me. Professor Sergei had cranked up the scanning electron microscope to 800,000 times zoom and I was looking at a mass of dots on this screen that the professor casually labeled as atoms. I was taken aback (careful not to move too much though in the delicate lab workspace). What I had only previously known as a bubbly, colored picture in a text book materialized into my reality. It was so interesting to put a realistic image to something so fundamentally small. I think using this high powered scanning electron microscope is so vital to nanoscience because it proves something. Sure the equations can prove that a particle should be there, or predict one like the Higgs Boson, but this experience made me realize the power of human’s science which has expanded into a realm where we keep getting closer to understanding the basis of existence.
The microscopes themselves were interesting in their own regards. This scanning electron microscope worked by sensitively tracing electrons that deflected off of the object and using this information as a picture. Its interesting how the electrons bounce off though, because at first they are repelled, then attracted, then repelled again. Because electrons follow a certain law for their angle of repelling, we are able to map out a very precise picture to a million times zoom. It was amazing to think about.
Speaking of the imagine, to the avid artist I am, I think the image of the electrons was pretty aesthetically captivating.
- This is what the microscope looked liked.
Favorite quotes by Professor Sergei
(In response to the sample moving on the screen due to the metal expanding)– “Sometimes we have hot students!
–“Sometimes people get mad because we magnify their mistakes a million times.”
–“To operate this machine you must have the perfect hair length.”
http://people.uvawise.edu/jrb/arts.html
http://www.sv.vt.edu/classes/MSE2094_NoteBook/96ClassProj/experimental/electron.html
http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/micro/gallery/aminoacid/aminoacid.html
http://www.emc.maricopa.edu/faculty/farabee/BIOBK/BioBookCHEM1.html
http://www.scharfphoto.com/about/