Other than electrons, what else can you magnify and view with an electron microscope?

My Paycheck

With an electron microscope you can view cells in detail that optical microscopes don’t provide, as in you can see all the working parts inside it and how the membrane works etc. It’s called an electron microscope because that is how they illuminate the object on the slide.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_microscope

You can’t view electrons with an electron microscope.

An electron microscope is not able to see electrons. It uses an electron beam instead of a light beam to demonstrate objects. By the DeBroglie hypothesis, matter has a wavelength. An electron has a far shorter wavelength than light, so an electron microscope can see things that are far smaller than what a conventional light microscope can see.

Basically, it will image whatever you put in there, but there are a few restrictions. The object to be scanned must be placed in a vacuum, so if it is an object that will be damaged by dramatic changes in pressure it is not a good idea. It also takes a while to scan, so the object must be able to remain perfectly still for up to a few hours. On the smallest scales, people are banned from being in the same room as a microscope, as the vibrations from their voice will ruin the scan. The object you wish to scan must also be small enough to fit in the scanning vault, which is similar to a small safe (at least on the ones I have seen).

We used to use an electron microscope to study details of very, very small land snails. You coat the shell or body part in gold (or platinum), set it in the vault, set up the scope and then leave for the afternoon.

Here is an example of such an image, one of the radula (feeding organ that looks somewhat like a toothed-tongue) of an octopus.

@Darwin Lurve for the Octopus radula!

You can’t view electrons with anything.

LOL @Pretty_Lilly, Lurve.

I swear by the Forgflo EMU-4C. If it’s good enough for Wildfire it’s good enough for me.

How can we pinpoint position of electrons when we are unable to view them?

@Kelly_Obrien… since when have we been able to pinpoint the position of electrons???

@Kelly_Obrien Have quantum physics changed overnight? Poor old Heisenberg!

To add to what @Darwin said, the SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope) is very useful for examining the structure of materials. My professors show us SEM images all the time to illustrate certain aspects of how a material is structured. The molecular arrangement in a material is directly linked to the properties it exhibits. If we find a material with desirable properties (e.g. very strong, or very flexible) we can look at its structure and see what creates those properties. Then, we can try to emulate them and create our own materials.

Personally, I think its for the sake of understanding how the world works just a tiny bit better :)

Virsuses.

Just to add to @FireMadeFlesh has said, you can now get SEM’s which do not need a vacuum, handy for scanning things whose structure would be distorted by the evaporation of liquids within it.

Bodily fluids.

Indeed. And poor old Kennard, eh. And Karl Popper. (“Karl Popper criticized Heisenberg’s form of the uncertainty principle, that a measurement of position disturbs the momentum,”)

@Kelly_Obrien We cannot pinpoint the position of electrons, but we can tell to a certain accuracy. The easiest way is to measure disturbances in the electromagnetic field of another object as an electron passes.

We’ll be pinpointing their position like crazy once we start colliding them in the Hardon Collider.

@Kelly_Obrien We will able to be far more accurate, but of course there are always limits of accuracy.

@FireMadeFlesh So we won’t be catching electrons with chopsticks anytime soon?!?!

@Kelly_Obrien – Not any time soon. Not even with really tiny chopsticks.

@Kelly_Obrien Well Mr Heisenberg tells us that if we know where an electron is accurately we have very little idea of its velocity – so you’d better be quick and accurate with those chopsticks.

Indeed

You can’t view electrons in an electron microscope. It just gives you a 3 dimensional view of an object up close.