What is the difference between magnification and resolving power

The simplest kind of magnification is the magnification glass. This is also known as the simple microscope. There are two methods for calculating magnification and other optical properties. These are ray diagrams and matrix representation. Ray diagrams are a simple method used to calculate factors such as magnification, object distance, image distance, whether the image is real or imaginary, and other related phenomena.

The matrix method is also capable of doing all these calculations. The ray diagrams are suitable for a small number of optical components 1 to 3 , and the matrix method is much easier when it comes to large and complex systems.

Using a microscope decreases the resolution to distances as short as 0. Resolution is a property of the eye. Resolving power is the ability of a lens to show two adjacent objects as discrete. Resolving power is a property of a lens.

Each lens in a microscope has a numerical aperture , or NA, value. This has to do with the angles of light that enter and exit a lens. Its applications are beyond the scope of this lab, but numerical aperture does influence the resolution possible with a particular lens, and so the NA value for the lens is usually printed on each objective. It will be a number less than 1. Each lens in a microscope also has a magnifying factor.

This is the degree to which that lens magnifies an image. Another basic feature of a microscope is its resolving power, otherwise known as the resolution. The two factors that affect the resolution are the wavelength of the light source and the numerical aperture. Electron microscopes provide better resolution and show more detail compared to light microscopes. For this reason, they are one of the most widely used tools in science.

Different kinds of microscopes can show us different amounts of detail they have different resolving power. Electron microscopes have a far greater resolving power than light microscopes , so we can use them to see even more detail than is visible under a light microscope.

When we talk about how microscopes work, we often say that they make things look bigger — that is, they magnify them. This is why all micrographs published in scientific journals must indicate the extent of magnification. However, making things bigger is only part of the story. Instead, microscopes increase the amount of detail that we can see. Explore further the big science ideas of magnification and resolution.

Scientists think of resolution as the ability to tell that two objects that are very close together are distinct objects rather than just one. The naked eye can tell apart resolve two objects such as grains of sand that are about a tenth of a millimetre apart — any closer than that, and we see the two as a single shape.