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On Microscopes

opaltiger

opaltiger

actually very huggable
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Suppose you're given one of these and a slide:

mx4200L.jpg


Would you know what to do with it? Without instructions?

Particularly interested in people who have taken biology classes, naturally.
 
I'd like to think so. We used them pretty much all throughout GCSE Biology, and although I didn't continue it to AS, I'm still pretty sure I'd be able to at least use it.
 
I would say yes but then last year in physics ALL I had to do was get the teacher ten unused slides.
...I wouldn't have posted this if it ended well.
 
I've always liked that stuff, and I had a microscope as a kid, so yeah.

Wee biology~
 
Yes.

... Well, even if you've never used one before, they're not *that* hard to figure out, are they? The worst thing that could happen is that you might accidentally crush the slide or something.
 
Right, do any of you know how to use them beyond "put slide under lens, look into microscope, turn knobs"?
 
The context for this thread, if anyone is wondering, is that opal turned up at university and somehow everyone already knew how to use the microscopes except him.
 
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Music Dragon said:
I've sadly never had a microscope capable of being used in any other way.
Click to expand...

I suspect you simply did not know it could be used another way. (okay, yes, most of the controls are knobs of some kind. My point is there is stuff beyond "look into eyepiece, focus").
 
Beat whoever gave me it to death because I dropped all sciences after Standard Grade?
 
opaltiger said:
I suspect you simply did not know it could be used another way. (okay, yes, most of the controls are knobs of some kind. My point is there is stuff beyond "look into eyepiece, focus").
Click to expand...
I've only ever used very cheap microscopes. They were simple enough. Apart from the Focus Knobs™ there's that one knob that allows you to temporarily blind yourself with a flash of white light, and you can twist the little... thing to activate different zoompowers.

All the other knobs seemed to do pretty much nothing but move various parts up and down or back and forth, so I figure they really amount to nothing but situational Focus Knobs™.
 
lmao, I could never get my microscope to focus properly. That or I'd see stuff, but it was apparently not what I was supposed to be seeing at all and what I was actually supposed to be seeing was on some other focus setting that I never ever found after an entire year of turning all the knobs. I hated that thing so much.
 
I know the basic "look into lens, adjust zoom and focus" and could probably figure out the rest without breaking it within... a week or two? Maybe more, I don't find microbes and such particularly interesting.
 
I was given the chance to use a pretty good microscope at the local university here and it wasn't particularly complicated. I can use a microscope, I'm just not an expert. we never did labs in high school and the microscopes they have at the high school are shit.
 
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