Calculate the total magnification of the nucleus of a cell being observed through a compound light microscope with a 10x ocular lens and an oil immersion lens.

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Accepted Answer

Hi, everyone and welcome. The next problem says, determine the total magnification of the mitochondria of a cell observed under a compound light microscope with 10 X I piece and 40 X objective lens. And our answer choices are a 10 XB 100 XC, 40 X or D 400 X. So let's recall that a compound light microscope has a series of two lenses in a row. When you're looking at an object, it has more than one lens overall. But you have, each time you look at an object you have first your objective lens which is closest to the specimen and this usually is on a little disk that rotates around with multiple lenses with different magnifications. So you can flip it around, you could have 100 X, you could have 40 X 10 X and you can turn it from lens to lens to get different magnifications of your specimen. So in this case, saying we're absorbing this mitochondria with our objective lens set to 40 X or 40 times magnification. And then as you look at the object you're looking through an eyepiece which has a second lens or the ocular lens which is pretty standard to be at 10 X mag magnification. So you have the 40 X magnification of the objective lens getting and you're looking through the eyepiece which has a second lens magnifying that another 10 times. So when you put these together to get the total magnification, you multiply those numbers together. So in this case, that would be 10, multiplied by 40 would equal 400 X as our total magnification. So that's choice D when we look at our other answer, choices, 10 X is just the ocular lens by itself 100 X would just be another. You might have a 100 X objective lens, but you're not using it right now, you're using the 40 X. So choice B is not correct. And choice C 40 X is the objective lens by itself not that total magnification. So once again, if we're looking at a mitochondria through a 40 X objective lens and our microscope is a 10 X I piece, the total magnification is choice D 400 X see you in the next video.

Calculate the total magnification of the nucleus of a cell being observed through a compound light microscope with a 10x ocular lens and an oil immersion lens.

Verified Solution

Key Concepts

Total Magnification

Ocular Lens

Oil Immersion Lens