AI Tutor
A single drop of pond water looks completely clear to your eyes, but it actually contains thousands of living creatures swimming around.
To see this hidden world, we use a compound light microscope, a tool that bends visible light through multiple glass lenses to magnify tiny specimens.
How do all the parts of this machine work together to turn a microscopic dot into a clear picture?

Parts of the Compound Microscope

Light starts at the base light source, passes up through the flat stage holding your specimen, and travels through two sets of lenses to reach your eyes.
To calculate total magnification, you multiply the power of the eyepiece (usually 10×10\times) by the power of the active objective lens.
For example, if your eyepiece is 10×10\times and you click the 40×40\times high-power objective into place, the specimen appears 10×40=400×10 \times 40 = 400\times larger than its real size.
Before you look through the lens, how do you mount a sample so light can shine right through it?

Making a Wet Mount Slide

A wet mount is a temporary slide made by placing a specimen in a drop of water or liquid stain between a glass slide and a thin square plastic cover called a coverslip.
Your sample must be paper-thin so that light rays can easily pass straight through the cells into the objective lens.