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Date_____________________________Class________
Vocabulary Magnification Unit—With Definitions
Directions: Using your science journal, define the following vocabulary. You will see this
vocabulary on your unit test.
Magnification: the act of expanding something in apparent size. This cannot happen without light.
Demagnification: to make something smaller in appearance
Lens: a transparent optical device used to converge or diverge transmitted light and to form images
Convex lens: bends the light that goes through it toward a focal point.
Concave lens: lens having at least one surface curved like the inner surface of a sphere. This lens
de-magnifies the image
Refraction: the bending of a wave when it enters a medium where its speed is changed.
Wave reflection: reflection occurs when light or ocean waves change directions as a result of
"bouncing off" a surface like a mirror.
Diffraction: the bending of waves
Scattering: when light waves bounce off of something
Stereoscope: is an optical microscope variant designed for low magnification observation of a
sample, typically using light reflected from the surface of an object rather than transmitted
through it
Compound light microscope: is composed of two lens systems. One lens system, called the objective,
is placed close to the specimen and produces an enlarged and resolved image of the specimen. Light
passes (or is transmitted) through the object
Electron microscope: : microscope of extremely high power that uses
beams of electrons focused by magnetic lenses instead of rays of light, the magnified image being
formed on a fluorescent screen or recorded on a photographic plate: its magnification is substantially
great than that of any optical microscope.