[Scale Book draft text]

Date:: [1976]

Reference:: PP/CRI/H/6/3/1

Credit: [Scale Book draft text]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

7/144

$2. uld mean using our eyes.whieiì-Hs^pestd—ttr WS—b3Tî3 details much smaller thar : wavelength We cannot V i ■> * hu oí çJSe light fcôyt^î^since such light is too coarse to respond to them. smaller and smaller thirtgs, we come m a high-powered microscope is of no Thus eventually, as we quite soon to a scale where I use. Fortunately an electron microscope uses much/shorter wavelengths I / Vand can see details in much smaller objects though it-rise certain technical difficulties. The specimens usually/have to be dry and 1 thin and tricks are needed to view them in tyhree dimensions. But for rW-; i -«3¿uV® smaller &&533S&S this method becomes too coarse and we encounter objects whose behaviour we canljonly ..deduce by complicated measurements and whose 'appearance' is really a crude way of summarizing all this indirect knowledge. Thus 'seeing' réally means trying to express in a convenient visual form the knowl/êdge we have at any particular scale. It would be easier to grasd if this could conveniently be done in three dimensions. How marvellous it would be to have many large three-dimensional models (one of our galaxy, another of one of our cells, and so on) and be/able to stroll through them and examine them at our leisure. But this cannot be achieved in a book. We have to be content with illustrations on a two dimensional page. This means that the artist cannotyálways show everything that he might wish^ Qcè d rse he has sçlh\e choice. If at times we cannot see the surface of ■fb idxsnt't'e- the earth for/clouds he can choose^a cloudless or partly cloudless day. But b6w does he show that the inside of the earth is red-hot? Opaque matter is obviously a problem and sometimes to the unfamiliar inside of an objectiva cut-away view is n ecessary^. This is 1/oWt- /tòesy ^oine help can be provided by the text which goes with the pictures.$

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[Scale Book draft text]

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