Introduction
Our world is full of little wonders which you can already see with the naked eye.
Think about the colorful wings of a butterfly, mold growing on forgotten bread,
fleas doing jumping exercises on your dog. Imagine that you could increase the
power of your eye by a factor of, let’s say, 100 – how exciting that would be. Now
you could also see that a drop of water is crowded with little life, that there is a
bunch of dust mites sleeping together with you in the bed and that bacteria can
look like rods or spheres.
Whatever your reason for wanting to learn more about microscopes and their
use might be – congratulations that you have decided to step into this interesting
hidden world.
About This Book
This book is intended for all who are interested in microscopes and microscopy.
You will find basic information on microscopy, how microscopes work, how best
to prepare a sample, the role of contrasting techniques and what a perfect illumination
is good for. Some easy experiments invite you to get used to microscopic
preparation and to play around. You don’t need to study this book from first to
last page – well, except that we would love if you did.
Conventions Used in This Book
To make this book easy for you to navigate, we’ve set up a few conventions:
✔✔New terms are printed in bold to make them stand out.
✔✔Species names are printed in italic letters, as is common in science.
✔✔Symbols will guide you through important facts and figures. If you are patient
enough to read the introduction to the end, you will find all of them
explained.
✔✔Some background information is hidden in boxes, which are easy to skip if
you choose.