How is a optical microscope made
How to Make a Microscope From Scratch
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previously I explored making eyeglasses
and correcting my vision to see clearly
for my next project I'm gonna go to the
next step in the evolution of optics
allow myself to see beyond human sight
to see the unseen it make a microscope
invention the microscope helped
revolutionize science and led to the
discovery of microorganisms and germ
theory which has helped save countless
lives
for some assistance making my microscope
I sought the advice of max at full scope
full scope was invented as a cheap and
affordable option for microscopes made
mostly out of paper
that cost less than a dollar to produce
it allows you to view at a hundred and
forty times magnification making it
possible to see bacteria in cells hi max
thanks for talking to me so for my next
project I'm looking to make a microscope
from scratch they're too large or
expensive microscope you can only see in
a class in the lab you guys went with a
different format with your full scope
can you tell me about that the idea
behind a microscope is really simple
which is when light hits a boundary say
between air and glass it bends and you
can use this property to take a small
image and make it much larger so most
research microscopes you see are complex
microscopes which use a series of lenses
to provide magnification and correct for
aberrations but you can get away with a
simpler strategy which is actually just
to use one very small spherical lens and
this is called a simple microscope and
so the smaller the lens the sharper
light is bent when it crosses the
boundary between air and glass and the
more magnification you get so for
instance with full scope is 2.38
millimeters in diameter and it provides
140 X magnification and so these simple
microscopes are actually really similar
to microscopes that were made by a Dutch
Draper named Antony von LAN
back in the 17th century but Finley and
Hooke used the same principle as us
which is actually to use just a simple
small lens so Antony van Leeuwenhoek
actually discovered many microorganisms
just by looking at pond water using his
simple microscope and just kind of
considered a sort of founder of
microbiology so what exactly goes into
making a microscope like yours if you
think about it there's not too many
things you need to do right you need to
be able to hold a sample in place and
provide magnification with that webs but
then most of the other functions besides
the lens can be provided by paper and so
we use a folded sheet of paper to hold
the lens and hold the slide and then to
align the two and it turns out that
paper if you think about you can
actually get very reproducibly precise
structure
of that and then the other important
thing is to be able to adjust the focus
by changing the distance between the
lens and whatever sample you have and
one way we do at the full scope is to
have the lens attached to a piece of
paper that flexes and so you can use
your thumbs to actually stretch or pull
this piece of paper with the lens and
that's how you can focus that's really
amazing I think a design like yours
would work really well for my project
awesome yeah well if you'd like we can
send you a sample of the full scope if
you'd like to use that as a template
yeah it'd be really great thanks for
your help again yeah of course my
pleasure good luck with everything
thanks to max advice and now have an
idea of what I need to do to make my
microscope but first I need to overcome
the problems I had last time when I made
my glass from scratch which resulted in
less than clear glass the key three
ingredients I used for glass last time
were sand limestone and potash one of
the issues with my first attempt at
glass was a likely impurities of my
ingredients pure potash is a white
powder the stuff I had last time was
more grey green in color so I needed to
give this a second try once again I used
hard wood ashes to extract the potash
from over rather than burning a ton of
wood this time just for the ashes I work
with a nearby restaurant Doolittle's
wood fire grill who was able to provide
me with a large supply of the leftover
ashes same as last time I'll soak the
ashes in water
and evaporate the potash from the water
solution over this time to reduce any
chance of other stray chemicals that
might get concentrated from the tap
water I used only distilled water
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once soaks I use a strainer to move the
charcoal and other trash that floated on
the surface
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[Applause]
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then I let the sediments settle to the
bottom import the remaining liquid into
a pot through a cloth to strain out any
remaining charcoal or other debris then
over the course of several hours oil the
liquid down
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unlike last time I love the solution sit
overnight again and separate once more
on the surface was a nearly completely
clear liquid that he then fully
evaporated and crystallized then
grinding up this final results had a
much more promising batch of product
ready
another impurity that affected my last
batch of glass was trace amounts of iron
in the sand that I collected this
resulted in a bluish tint to my glass
this time I tried using a strong magnet
to extract any trace iron after several
passes through I was able to extract a
surprisingly decent about the magnetic
debris which I think I'll save for a
future project now knowing they can
extract iron this way it's very likely
you'll be seeing this again in a future
episode
instead of using live stone this time I
thought I'd try a different source of
the same chemical eggs I've collected a
variety of different eggs so far in my
quest and all bird eggs are at least the
95 percent calcium carbonate that I'm
after so I thought I'd give this source
a try
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with new more purer sources for all of
my ingredients it's time to melt them
into glass seriously I was able to work
with a glass floor Michael unfortunately
his schedule was too packed let us use
his kiln again and no other glass
blowers that we reached out to was
willing to let us use theirs so we were
forced to go a little lower tech and
Michael lent us the equipment to build
our own makeshift kiln
using a bunch of ceramic Rick's and a
propane torch we were able to get
something that should hopefully work
after waiting a few hours for the kiln
to get to the right temperature I mixed
together the three ingredients and added
it to the kill after a while the glass
started to melt and turn into a thick
liquid one thing we noted from my first
attempt was that the glass lower in the
crucible was actually a lot clearer than
the top portion that we poured from we
suspected this is because of potash sunk
to the bottom to counteract this we made
sure to mix a glass periodically with
all the improvements to my ingredients
and knowing to mix it now I was feeling
pretty optimistic about this attempt
after going for over 10 hours and gain
late into the night it looked like we
were getting very close
I attempted to pull a strand of glass to
make a lens from should I then let cool
overnight before the next step the next
step to actually making my microscope
lens is to pull a thin strand of glass
and then melt it into a bead to practice
I use some glass rods heating them to
their melting point under a propane
torch I pulled them until they're super
thin and then broke off one end and I
heated that end until it started to form
a bead the surface tension the glass
helps it deform it to a sphere and then
once it's reached the desired size I
remove it from the flame and snap it off
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I have to be careful though because if
it goes flying there's no way I'll be
able to find it after several attempts
and a few different sized lenses I gave
the glass that I actually made a shot
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[Laughter]
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with a few different options for lenses
now I just need to make the body of the
microscope things of old school I know
the paper can make a great body
it just happened who have already made
when I previously attempted to make a
book from scratch to make this cotton
paper I travel though cotton farm in
Texas where I hand-picked my own cotton
then I use a gin to remove the seeds
from the rest of the fiber the fiber was
then ran through a beater machine to
break it up into smaller bits it was
placed into a tub of water and a mold is
pulled through it forming the sheet of
paper lastly it's pressed in a vise and
then hung to dry things heal example of
old scope sent me I'm able to use it as
a pattern to make mine
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now I just need to put everything
together and try it with my actual glass
so yeah that's that's completely opaque
so in the end this attempt to making
glass was not any more successful than
my last unfortunately the biggest
culprit I suspect for this one was the
kiln itself I think if we could have
baked it hotter and for longer we would
have gotten much better result over now
it's developed a yellow tint which I'm
not sure why this happened but there's a
chance it might be from trace amounts of
sulfur in the eggshells which can cause
a yellow tinted glass so despite all
this I still haven't managed to make
good glass for optics however with the
glass rods I was actually able to make
pretty good lenses okay actually works
pretty good I can definitely see like
Paramecium Wow I worked a lot better
than I thought it would and actually see
the Paramecium in the slide which the
Paramecium is the original maker
organism that Leeuwenhoek actually
discovered and was able to create the
theory of microorganisms from so well
the glass was yet another failure I did
manage to make an actual working
microscope and that self I think is a
pretty cool fact that I was able to make
something I can see a hole in visible
world with so give me your best
suggestions in the comments and next
week I'll do a follow-up video or
explore what all I can see with this
microscope
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