What can’t your microscope do?
Any user of a modern scope, or at least, a high end scope, considers the addition of new widgets. Whether it’s a better illuminator, adding a more sensitive camera, or even a motorized component, we think of scope upgrades,as…well…UP grades, yes? But in so many other areas of our lives, we’ve seen that less can really be more. How many of us still have a cable TV service, and a landline, and a fax line, and a fiber connection for internet? We’ve reduced all of these different services to a simpler and easier choice – wired of some type (Cable, fiber or whatnot) for high bandwidth, and wireless (cellular etc) for low bandwidth. I’d expect we’ll soon see the end of wired connections at all…. One could imagine the new apartment renter only 15 years ago, asking the question, “how many phone / fax lines do I need?” yet now, we find our less is better, is more. Less power consumption is better, yet 30 years ago every ad wasn’t about efficiency, it was about POWER. Now, don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing that stirs my soul like the sound of a Hellcat at the reno air races, pushing 500MPH and screaming out the gutteral sound of 2,000 horsepower only a few hundred feet away. Power is cool. But hey, I drive a hybrid. In many practical ways, less is more. It’s with this in mind that I ask, do you NEED that 30lb computer, sitting next to your scope? What if it wasn’t there? What could you do differently with your scope if, say, it was smaller, or lighter? What could you do with your scope if those boxes and wires hanging everywhere were….less?
Sometimes we don’t see the power in less. I love wrenching on scopes that, by all rights, may blow a breaker were everything fired up at the same time. I love the complexity, but I’m, for lack of a better term, an imaging gearhead. I love working on laser launches BECAUSE they might burn my fingers! If they can’t, it’s just not as cool for some reason. But at the end of things, I’m just a gearhead. Research is what matters, not my personal desire to melt fiber. Today more then ever we are presented with the challenge of better understanding our world, our environment, our universe, through basic research. We need affordable tools. We need tools that are easy to obtain, easy to use, easy to service. Tools that can be used for what they are. The research is the objective, but so many microscopy companies have fallen into the mistaken belief that the device they sell is the objective itself. A microscope is nothing more than 450 years of technological advancement beyond the hammer, but……it’s still a tool.
What if the tools you had in the lab weren’t aimed at being the most complex, all encompassing widget around, but instead were aimed at being useful for the intended purpose? Would less complexity equal more speed?
What if your microscope wan’t intended to have every cool new thing added to it? What if it were just made to have cool stuff, useful stuff, already inside? Would less wiring and add-on components equal more useable bench space? Or more potential places you could put the thing?
What if the scope you wanted to buy didn’t come with a 4 page list of crypto-part numbers, providing your sales rep, and you, an excellent way to miss detailed little parts on the system, only to figure that out when you receive the thing? Would less itemization result in more assurance in a simple, complete system?
What if you didn’t have to earn a dual Ph.D in computer science just to run esoteric software with a few hundred unintelligible icons scattered all over the place? Would less buttons equal more sanity?
You know, most of these questions aren’t new ones. There will always be gearheads who want a water cooled 220V laser simply because it needs water cooling, but in so many ways, the current microscope options available are built FOR the gearhead, and then reduced and passed to the regular researcher who just wants the tool to work.
I’ll always be a gearhead, but I’ve come to realize how powerful less can be, and it’s pretty freaking powerful….
4 Days and counting.
Austin