ABSTRACT
The X-ray microscope seemed to offer the electrifying possibility of actually seeing granules release their protein contents. David Attwood talk was about a potentially groundbreaking new microscope, an X-ray microscope—Superman writ small. Instead of using light from the visible spectrum like ordinary microscopes or electrons like the electron microscope, it used X-rays in a particular range of wavelengths called “soft X-rays” as the light source. The idea was not new, but it had only become possible to build an X-ray microscope that could live up to its theoretical potential. In theory, resolution close to that of the electron microscope could be achieved with soft X-rays. The method opened the door to a microscopic X-ray spectroscopy that could estimate various chemical properties of the tiny samples. Though the new microscope seemed to have much promise, there was also a great deal of skepticism about the claims being made for it.
