“Any Sufficiently Advanced Technology is Indistinguishable From Magic”
Such was our reaction the first time Hubble’s “Eagle Nebula” imagery beamed in from deep space. Now it seems Arthur Clarke’s prophetic words ring true once again, this time from a universe within the microscope.
From Science Daily comes news of a breakthrough in microscopy from scientists at the School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering, with potentially far-reaching implications. “World’s Most Powerful Optical Microscope: Microscope Could Solve The Cause of Viruses”, reads the headline.
They report seeing structures as small as 50 nanometers in size, 20 times smaller than the best optical microscope currently available. Nano, a prefix meaning “dwarf” in Greek, also means one billionth of a meter.
To put that in perspective, the period at the end of this sentence is almost 500,000 nanometers in diameter. Which means they’ve effectively moved beyond the electron microscope – well beyond it, and the implications are significant.
Read the full article here, and enjoy learning a bit of modern magic.
