Recent, improved, summary on microscopes

Microscopes don’t work.  Stop the diagnosis of diseases.  

i. Light projection disperses the image of the object.

• All enlargement makes the image less clear because it stretches the original.
• A ‘cell’ magnified 10,000 times would not be recognisable.
• Light projection will disperse the image until it is unrecognisable or before that the light will not travel far enough to produce an image.

ii. Lens magnification is reflection and it is limited.

• With a lens, as when we look into a cylinder, we focus on a smaller area than we usually do, but there is usually greater enlargement than with a cylinder.
• With lenses, despite what is said in textbooks, it seems likely that we do not view the object directly but instead see a reflected image.
• This is indicated by what we see when using a microscope and magnifying lenses.
• First, when looking into the microscope we do not appear to be focusing on the glass slide, but on something positioned before it within the cylinder:  our focal length is shorter than the distance between our eyes and the slide.   
• This can be tested by removing our eye from the eyepiece and noticing that we have to adjust our vision before being able to see a similarly small object placed on, or by, the slide.
• Second, observation and deduction from using lenses indicates that we are more likely to be seeing a reflected object than viewing it directly.
• It is unclear by what mechanism the lens, or light leaving it, would be able to stretch the object so that we saw its image in the same position it was located.    
• Non-direct viewing, whether backwards projection or reflection, matters because hypothetical enlargement is then limited by the thickness and width of the lenses as well as by the distance between the lens and the object and the nature of light projection.
• The traditional microscope is said to contain two types of lenses: an ocular lens higher up the microscope and three objective lenses further down it, the most powerful of these said to magnify 60 times or more in a traditional microscope.      
• However, observation when using any magnifying lens reveals that you soon get problems enlarging, such as upside down images, multiple images, blurring, distortion and loss of visibility.
• These indicate the limited nature of lens magnification and the fact that what is taking place is reflection rather than direct viewing of the object.

iii. How reflection works and why it limits enlargement.

• If we see a reflected object in a lens rather than view the object directly we might expect the image to remain the same size or get smaller as we raise the lens.  
• Similarly, if what we were seeing were the result of light projection only, for example, if there were illumination from behind the mirror, we would not be able to  account for distortions as we continued to raise or shift the lens or our eyes.  
• Instead, we seem to be seeing a reflected image, so that when we place the lens on a page, what we see remains in place if we shift our eyes, whereas, if we raise the lens, the objects we are viewing shift and distort if we move our eyes or tilt the lens.  
• If we hold the lens above our head, we can see objects behind us reflected, so that the lens itself seems to be acting as a mirror rather than simply a screen.  
• Nevertheless, in the absence of a mechanical angle of illumination from the lens to the object, we need to account for the angle at which the object is reflected in the lens.  
• That there is an angle is evident from the fact that the image changes as we move the lens from the object.
• The shape of the lens determines the angle, which is why a smaller lens will magnify more than a larger lens, which is relatively flatter.

• Although both reflection and projection can explain enlargement, the sorts of distortions we get with lenses can only be explained by reflection.
• Enlargement of the image can then be explained by the object being reflected within the lens at the same angle at which light enters the lens, such that it first converges and then diverges so that it is viewed the correct way around (eg, so that we can read words).
• The image on the back of the lens is larger than the first when the image converges at the same angle at which it is reflected to a point before the middle of the lens so that it diverges to produce a larger image.
• As the lens is lifted, however, the angle of reflection increases, so that it converges at a point beyond the middle of the lens, so that the second image will be reduced.  
• An upside down image might only be explained by the edges of the object no longer being in our direct vision as we raise a convex lens but instead being above or below it so that they cannot be reflected in the same direction as the rest of the object.
• As we lift the lens, the area that is reflected becomes smaller - which is why the reflected image will appear larger.
• After the object we focus on is a mere point, as we continue to raise the lens, reflection occurs at the same angle, so that objects on the left of the point will be reflected to the right and vice versa.  
• Before that, we may get distortions when objects not in our direct vision on the left or right are displaced to the right or left.    
• This shift is consistent with the image one sees when using a lens appearing to blur after first being the right way up and before then being the wrong way up.  
• In the same way, when we look through a glass of water an image of objects to the right of our vision appear on the left inside the glass.

iv. Why we cannot view a speck enlarged to the width of the aperture or lens.

• Projection and reflection would also explain why a speck on a slide could not be stretched to the width of the lens: we view an image of a larger area because a larger area is illuminated, unless projection were by a speck of light behind the object, when the light would not be strong enough even if encased or the image would again be too dispersed or the angle too large.

• Reflection also seems likely to be the cause of enlargement if we consider that a spoon held in a glass of water appears magnified, whereas a penny dropped to the bottom of a glass will look the same size.
• If we use a camera zoom we can see objects as if we were closer to them, but we get blurring, distortion and loss of visibility as we enlarge.
• Nor is the zoom placed behind the camera lens: it makes no sense for the microscope cylinder to be behind the objective lenses.  
• We also get blurring when we try to photograph moving objects, nor could we even see an ‘electron’ moving at 2,200 km/s.
• We can see very small things, such as mould spores, with the eye alone, whereas things that are invisible to the eye – such as ‘viral cells’ - are unlikely to exist.
• While the microscope’s cylinder, illumination and tube length may improve focus, it is not constructed to achieve maximum lens magnification or projection.
• This is because the lens measurements are small and the slide placed too close to the final lens.

vi. The Prinz 2801 microscope (900 x): enlarges around three times.

• In fact, the traditional microscope would not seem capable of magnifying what is on the slide more than 3.3 times (based on lengths in the Prinz 2801 microscope, using ratios to calculate angles, and assuming illumination by the mirror placed at 45 degrees).
• We may see at low magnification a wash of the stain on the slide, depending on how the microscope is lit, but not the translucent material itself, which the stain would overwhelm rather than highlight.
• However, the more complex image we see looking into the cylinder, whichever objective lens tube is viewed and, normally, whatever is on the slide, appears to be an object within the microscope, projected and reflected at low magnification.
• This object resembles in structure and scale the lens of an eye at low magnification (as seen, for example, squinting into sunlight), and in fact with the Prinz microscope we see the lenses of own eye in layers above the image on the cylinder screen.
• However, the object on the screen is relatively fixed, with only the position of objects changing as the focal adjustment is rotated.  
• A hidden object theory seems plausible when the microscope is turned upside down and we see objects resembling small orange irises just behind the objective lens tube glass.

vii. The Sunagor MagnaScope (126 x): enlarges around five times.

• The Sunagor MagnaScope microscope comes in two parts, a zoom that is said to bring objects 7 times closer and a magnifying glass and short light funnel that is said to magnify by 18 times.  
• If we join together the two parts of the Sunagor MagnaScope, there is enlargement when we place an object at the end of the funnel, although by only about 5 rather than 126 times.   
• However, if we try to view objects closer or further away we again focus on the lens of our own eye or the lenses.
• If we shift our eyes slightly from the eyepiece we can see reflected objects brought closer and enlarged around two times, indicating that reflection is taking place within the zoom only.  
• This is because the funnel of the magnifying lens restricts the angle of reflection so that we are only able to get a clear image of an object at the end of it.  
• Instead, when we look into the MagnaScope we again see the lens of our own eye on an otherwise undifferentiated lens, whose diameter again seems only to be magnified about two times.  
• If we turn the Sunagor upside down, we see  small glass spheres in each corner, but there appear to be no hidden objects in either the zoom or magnifying glass.

viii. Whether there is a hidden object and how to account for variations.

• It may be that a hidden object is placed in the traditional tin microscope or it may be that the relatively fixed object we see on the cylinder screen is of a lens whose structure resembles the lens of an eye - what we are not viewing with any clarity is the material on the glass slide.
• The stain on the slide appears as a paler ‘wash’ over the image on the slide as a result of illumination and dispersal.   
• Variations when using the same microscope, stain and illumination would occur as a result of variations in the opacity of material on the slide if some parts were to block light entering the microscope.
• Occasional striking variations would also occur if different lights, or sources of light (when using the mirror), were used.
• Traditional tin microscopes are difficult to take apart or even break, so it is difficult to find out what hidden objects they might contain and which parts are hollow, but we might ask ourselves why this is so.
• It may be, from observation of other viewing instruments, that one of the lenses onto which and from which an object’s image is reflected onto the cylinder screen is in fact our own eye, so that our eye is also acting as a mirror.  
• This seems plausible when we consider the apparent mystery of why objects in a mirror change when we view the mirror from different angles.  

ix. Science fiction.

• If you doubt that science is fiction, think also about whether the instructions/information contained within DNA would be philosophically compatible with living matter, in the sense of whether one would be able to affect the other.
• Or whether birds would be able to fly against a 1000 m/ph wind or else travel simply by hovering above the earth’s axis.

x. The politics of disease.

• Overt and covert discussions of eugenics imply that population control is both desirable and necessary.
• Elsewhere, it seems to be implied that there has been a deliberate attempt to undermine agricultural production, including through a reduction in the number of agricultural workers as a result of illness as well as capitalisation and the re-allocation of resources.

"Vide Ricardo's letter to Malthus of October 9, 1820: 'Political economy you think is an enquiry into the nature and causes of wealth - I think it should be called an enquiry into the laws which determine the division of the produce of industry amongst the classes who concur in its formation. No law can be laid down respecting quantity, but a tolerably correct one can be laid down respecting proportions.  Every day I am more satisfied that the former is vain and delusive, and the latter only the true objects of science.'" John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, 1936, 1984. 

"According to Babeuf, Robespierre expected the population to be greatly reduced by the Terror, the war and the internal uprisings.  He planned to achieve a redistribution of the land by the liquidation of the landowning class.  Its members would be, if not killed off, forced to 'execute themselves' in time, and in their own interest."  J.L. Talmon, The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy, 1952.

"In the first place, let me say this.  Anyone afraid of cancer - and fear of it is both common and understandable - will do well to read this book. For fear here, as in other walks of life, is often largely due to a complete misconception of its nature." R.J.C. Harris, Cancer, 1962.

"The case of sickle cell anemia and malaria is rather a special one, but beneficial evolutionary consequences of improved medical care may be quite common."  John Maynard Smith, ‘Eugenics and Utopia’, 1965.

"It follows that as our ability to recognise heterozygotes increases, we could be led to sterilize almost the whole population on eugenic grounds, which is clearly absurd."  John Maynard Smith, ‘Eugenics and Utopia’, 1965. 

"We might conjecture that in the long run, if there is an upper bound on ability, we would eventually reach a society with the greatest equal liberty the members of which enjoy the greatest equal talent.  But I shall not pursue this thought here." John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 1972.  

"If radical environmentalists were to invent a disease to bring human population back to sanity, it would probably be something like AIDS ... the possible benefits of this to the environment are staggering ... just as the Plague contributed to the demise of feudalism, AIDS has the potential to end industrialism." Christopher Manes, Green Rage: Radical Environmentalism and the Unmaking of Civilization, 1991.  

• Bibliography:
• Britannica Concise Encyclopaedia (Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc, 2002)
• Chamot, Emile Monnin, and Mason, Clyde, Walter, Handbook of Chemical Microscopy, Volume I (New York, John Wiley & Sons, 1931)
• Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary, Twenty Third Edition (Philadelphia and London, W. B. Saunders, 1957)
• Hecht, Eugene, Schaum's Outline of College Physics, Eleventh Edition (McGraw Hill, 2012)
• The Hutchinson Encyclopaedia  (Oxford, Helicon Publishing, 1994)
• Maynard Smith, John, 'Eugenics and Utopia', in Frank E. Manuel, Utopias and Utopian Thought (Boston, Beacon Press, 1966)
• Orrock, Louise, On HIV and Aids, Taxila Institute (institute.iqmind.org/on-hiv-and-aids-by-louise-orrock), June 8, 2015
• Orrock, Louise, On Cancer, Taxila Institute (institute.iqmind.org-on-cancer-by-louise-orrock), June 8, 2015
• PubMed, US National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health, (www.ncbi.nim.nih.gov/pubmed)
• Rawls, John N, A Theory of Justice (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1971)
• Trevor-Roper, Patrick D, Lecture Notes on Opthamology, Sixth Edition (Oxford, Blackwell, 1983)
• US Government Monthly Catalogue, Issued by the Superintendent of Documents, 564, December 1941 (US Government Printing Office, Washington 1942)
• Whitehead, Alfred North, Science and the Modern World (New York, The Free Press, 1967)
• The Regulation of Small Loan Businesses in the United States (1920s, copy lost, reference no longer online).

Louise Orrock © September 2016

Email questions to: louiseorrock@gmail.com

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