Sterling Price Newberry (August 10, 1915 – January 28, 2017) was an American inventor and

microscopist Microscopy is the technical field of using microscopes to view objects and areas of objects that cannot be seen with the naked eye (objects that are not within the resolution range of the normal eye). There are three well-known branches of micr ...

. He was born in

Springfield, Missouri Springfield is the third largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and the county seat of Greene County. The city's population was 169,176 at the 2020 census. It is the principal city of the Springfield metropolitan area, which had an estimat ...

. Newberry invented the shadow

X-ray microscope An X-ray microscope uses electromagnetic radiation in the soft X-ray band to produce magnified images of objects. Since X-rays penetrate most objects, there is no need to specially prepare them for X-ray microscopy observations. Unlike visible li ...

and was one of the founders of the

Microscopy Society of America The Microscopy Society of America (MSA) was founded in 1942 as The Electron Microscope Society of America and is a non-profit organization that provides microanalytical facilities for studies within the sciences. Currently, there are approximately 3 ...

. He turned 100 in August 2015 and died in January 2017 at the age of 101.Microscopy Society of America - News
/ref> The first

X-ray An X-ray, or, much less commonly, X-radiation, is a penetrating form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. Most X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 10 picometers to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30&nb ...

microscope A microscope () is a laboratory instrument used to examine objects that are too small to be seen by the naked eye. Microscopy is the science of investigating small objects and structures using a microscope. Microscopic means being invisi ...

s had used grazing off lenses at a very low angle to focus X-ray images. The images, however, were blurry from diffraction. While working on an alternate approach for

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable en ...

, a

technician A technician is a worker in a field of technology who is proficient in the relevant skill and technique, with a relatively practical understanding of the theoretical principles. Specialisation The term technician covers many different speciali ...

came to him with a

badge A badge is a device or accessory, often containing the insignia of an organization, which is presented or displayed to indicate some feat of service, a special accomplishment, a symbol of authority granted by taking an oath (e.g., police and ...

. The technician did not believe there were X-Rays in the machine, he had taken his warning badge, with X-ray film, and placed a bit of screen wire on it. He pulled the badge out and saw the exposed screen wire

pattern A pattern is a regularity in the world, in human-made design, or in abstract ideas. As such, the elements of a pattern repeat in a predictable manner. A geometric pattern is a kind of pattern formed of geometric shapes and typically repeated li ...

on it. He also saw another screen wire pattern, however, far smaller and finer. Newberry recognized that the fine pattern was the screen wire mounting for the

specimen Specimen may refer to: Science and technology * Sample (material), a limited quantity of something which is intended to be similar to and represent a larger amount * Biological specimen or biospecimen, an organic specimen held by a biorepository ...

, but that it was 400-to-the-inch wire and that it had been magnified by expansion of the

shadow A shadow is a dark area where light from a light source is blocked by an opaque object. It occupies all of the three-dimensional volume behind an object with light in front of it. The cross section of a shadow is a two-dimensional silhouette, ...

. This gave him the insight he needed to create a working commercial microscope, placing the specimen very close to a point source of X-rays and then farther back a photographic plate. The "shadow" of the specimen would be under-exposed, that is X-ray dark, on the plate. This process is similar to medical X-rays, except that the microscope uses a point source for clarity whereas a medical x-ray tends to use a much larger x-ray source to avoid

distortion In signal processing, distortion is the alteration of the original shape (or other characteristic) of a signal. In communications and electronics it means the alteration of the waveform of an information-bearing signal, such as an audio signa ...

References

External links

Early electron microscope

Microscopy Society of America
1915 births 2017 deaths 20th-century American inventors American centenarians Men centenarians {{US-inventor-stub