The microscopic scale is the scale of objects and events smaller than those that can easily be seen by the naked eye, requiring a lens or microscope to see them clearly. In physics, the microscopic scale is sometimes regarded as the scale between the macroscopic scale and the quantum scale. Microscopic units and measurements are used to classify and describe very small objects. One common microscopic length scale unit is the micrometre, which is one millionth of a metre.
Cay foraminifera sand from Warraber Island Torres Strait, under a light microscope. The shape and texture in each individual grain is made visible through the microscope.
The impact marks and features on this single grain of sand can be clearly viewed through an electron microscope.
Slides with preserved pieces of hair under the coverslip. These samples were microscopically analysed for their condition, followed by DNA analysis, as a part of an animal forensics investigation.
A sample can be cross-sectioned from these ovary Krukenberg tumours to microscopically observe their histopathological appearance. Under the different magnification levels, a microscope can zoom in on the invasive proliferation of signet-ring cells with a desmoplastic stroma.
A microscope is a laboratory instrument used to examine objects that are too small to be seen by the naked eye. Microscopy is the science of investigating small objects and structures using a microscope. Microscopic means being invisible to the eye unless aided by a microscope.
Microscope
18th-century microscopes from the Musée des Arts et Métiers, Paris
Carl Zeiss binocular compound microscope, 1914
Electron microscope constructed by Ernst Ruska in 1933