# What can I see with 500X magnification?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-i-see-with-500x-magnification/603798>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 22, 2011, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-i-see-with-500x-magnification/603798 "2011-11-22T21:40:08Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\
**Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-i-see-with-500x-magnification/603798/21 "2011-11-23T08:27:05Z")

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> [@Fear\_Itself](#):
>
> Spermatazoa. Or so I have heard.

I was going to suggest that, based on the thread title alone, but it might not be quite so appropriate a thing to show a small niece…

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**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\
**Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-i-see-with-500x-magnification/603798/22 "2011-11-23T15:20:13Z")

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Another point to prepare her for - like anatomy, microscopy is not as pretty and precise as textbooks like us to believe. Even if the microscope is good enough to give sharp detail, microbes tend to look more like scribbled black-and-white hand drawings of tiny things jumping around, not glossy multicoloured pretty pictures like science book illustrations - just as real dissection looks more like a bowl of chopped liver rather than the nice colour-coded diagrams from textbooks. Of course, other than the moon, stuff through a home-sized telescope looks nothing like the planetary probles and hubble long-exposure pictures lead us to believe.

If you are lucky, you can get some interesting sights from things like crystals and cells.

The fascinating thing about science is that you can see this stuff for real, not that it looks pretty. Age 6? She will definitely need some help getting some samples prepared to the point where she can see anything notable.

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**Author:** ![Washoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecae2f/32.png) [@Washoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Washoe)\
**Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-i-see-with-500x-magnification/603798/23 "2011-11-23T15:54:29Z")

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> [@CC](#):
>
> This is because there is a conceptual disconnect between what a person can see with the naked eye and what can be seen in the microscope. To a younger child, there is basically no cognitive connection between what’s seen and the knowledge of what one is looking at.

Can you provide a cite for that? I was about four or five years old the first time an individual atom was imaged; I remember my father coming to me with the then-current issue of _Science_ and showing me the picture. I understood what I was looking at, despite being notably disappointed with the resolution. (“Geez, Dad—it just looks like a stupid blob. Why can’t I see the individual protons? And _where_ are the fucking electrons?”)

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**Author:** ![obbn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/d6d6ee/32.png) [@obbn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obbn)\
**Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-i-see-with-500x-magnification/603798/24 "2011-11-23T17:43:22Z")

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> [@obbn](#):
>
> Possibly my ex-wife’s soul or her sex drive? 😃

_tap_ _tap_ _tap_ Is this thing on? … _cricket noises_ …😃

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