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Toy Microscope

A toy microscope is a great instrument which you can use to investigate very small things up close; things which are too small to see clearly with your naked eye. It will make little things look much bigger. A microscope is a sophisticated type of magnifying glass. It bends light to make objects appear bigger. We all know that to see something bigger you decrease the distance between you and that object. A magnifying glass creates the same effect by bending light a certain way to make an object seem closer to us, and therefore bigger.

Check out this video explaining the microscope:



You can have a lot of fun with a microscope. You can look at hair, grains of sand, blades of grass, insects, and many other tiny things. It's a whole new world at the microscopic level. As a kid I used to read Owl magazine. In this magazine there was a comic strip called the Mighty Mites, in which these kids would shrink down to microscopic size and investigate the world around them. It was great fun to read. There was also a great movie called "Honey, I Shrunk The Kids" which I watched many years ago. In this movie, a scientist accidentally shrinks his kids down to a really small size. And from there the movie goes into high gear and becomes a real adventure as seen from the perspective of the kids.

A microscope will get your imagination soaring. It will allow you to see the world of the very small. It is one of the most important and powerful instruments in a scientist's toolkit, and it is something anyone can use.

Check out this fun video explaining microscopes:





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