Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 38, Number 77, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 June 1906 — Field of Microscopy Extended. [ARTICLE]

Field of Microscopy Extended.

Two German scientists, Drs. Zeigmondy and Sicdentopf of Jena university, have recently brought into use a new method of microscopic research, through which objects a thousand times smaller than any hitherto visible by the most powerful microscope may be observed. This method is based od the well-known fact that particles of dust which float in a sunbeam are visible only when the observer stands at a right angle to the sunbeam. These particles are so small as not to be visible through our strongest microscopes, although they appear to be visible to the naked eye. What we see is not the particle itself, but a cone of light reflected from it, and the new method of the ultramicroscope or hyper-microscope, is •imply an ordinary microscope placed at right angles to a ray of light, in which particles measuring not more than a fivemillionth of an inch become visible. Thus disease bacilli hitherto invisible may be studied at will.