Question: how can you see things other people cant

Ashley Cadby answered on 2 Jul 2012:

So, if you have a single molecule and that molecule emits light anyone can see it. So anyone can see a single molecule you could most likely see it with the naked eye. The problem with microscopes is that if there are two molecules really close together you can’t see them individually, because you don’t have enough resolution to see the gap between them. The microscopes I use and make try to get around those problems, we do this by making each of those molecules do something a little strange so that in some way they are different from the one next to them. We could make one blink, this means that over time it is different to its neighbour, we can use that difference to isolate and identify each molecule. We could look at things of different colours using filters or we can use sharp pieces of metal to poke each molecule in turn. We use many trick to make molecules slightly different from their neighbours so that we can identify individual molecules.