Greetings my dear readers, we continue in the search of the important influence of the technological advances in our lives, characteristic essentially linked with the contributions of the whole scientific field towards the above mentioned technological area and with it we continue emphasizing that the technology is not more than applied science and this we have demonstrated it in each one of the previous articles.

Many have been the optical instruments of great impact in innumerable activities of our daily life, where, the microscope represents one of them, and the same one by its great benefit in the study of cells and weaves is possible to locate them in important laboratories of our academies with the purpose of being able to teach Biology, Microbiology, Embryology, among others, and from there its application spreads towards all the field of science.

It is important to remember that this optical instrument has great complexity due to the fact that it is constituted or composed of a series of lenses, both convergent and divergent in different parts of the instrument, thus constituting the optical system of the instrument.

This optical system of the compound microscope is constituted by the condenser, the objectives and the eyepieces, in this opportunity we will analyze in a very general way the condenser and its constituent elements, where, of course we will find some lenses, as we can observe in the following figure 1.

Figure 1. Diagram of light rays passing through the components of a condenser

The condenser represents the part of the microscope that is located under the plate, and as they could visualize its objective is to concentrate and regulate the rays of light that come either from a natural or artificial source directed towards the specimen to be observed as we saw in figure 1 above.

In addition we could notice the presence of two convergent lenses with the purpose of making converge (principle of refraction) these rays of light towards the circular hole located in the center of the plate, another important element to emphasize is the denominated iris diaphragm and like in our natural optical system (eyes) its function is the one of the regulation of the entrance of the amount of light, and thus to be able to concentrate the greater amount of luminous rays towards the specimen that we wished to analyze.

Conclusion

The condenser represents an extraordinary component of the optical system of a compound microscope, where, we could find essential constituent elements such as a pair of convergent lenses and their important effect of light refraction towards the orifice where we placed the sample or specimen to study, in addition to the outstanding task of the iris diaphragm and its essential function in regulating the amount of light inside the condenser.

Extraordinary are the contributions of the essential link between science and technology towards our development or evolution in all senses, and without doubt, optical instruments such as complex microscopes are increasingly higher quality and therefore efficiency in the treatment of light rays, this thanks to the continuous renewal of new materials for the development of any element related to the optical system of these instruments.

Until another opportunity my dear and appreciated readers.

Note: The images are of my authorship, made using the Power Point application, and the animated gifs were made with the Photoscape application.

Recommended Bibliographic Reference

[1]Compound microscope.