Question

The first compound light microscopes were constructed by the end of the sixteenth century. What is a compound microscope?

A) It has a moveable stage.
B) It has two lenses.
C) Its lens is double the size of the original microscopes.
D) The lens has two different colors.
E) They have two different light sources.

Answer 1

A compound microscope features two convex lenses, the objective lens and the eyepiece or ocular, and is designed to magnify small objects with improved clarity. Option B.

Step-by-step explanation:

A compound microscope is an optical instrument that is composed of two convex lenses: one being the objective lens with typical magnification values from 5x to 100x, and the other being the eyepiece, also known as the ocular, which usually contains several lenses within a cylindrical barrel.

The purpose of these lenses is to magnify small objects, and they work together to produce a significantly enlarged image that can be viewed with ease because it is positioned far enough from the observer.

The simplest form of a compound microscope, invented in the early 1600s by eyeglass makers in The Netherlands and Denmark, enhances the viewing of small samples, with the objective lens providing the initial magnification and the eyepiece further magnifying the image formed by the objective lens. Option B.