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SCENE XIII. Radha’s Microscope

1 KATHERINE. Can you illustrate this with some nice example or something?

2 CHRISTIANUS. Let’s see. Have I previously told you about Radha? [57]

3 KATHERINE. Radha? I don’t think so.

4 CHRISTIANUS. Radha is a very attractive young woman that I know. She is a university-trained biologist. And she has an electron microscope at her lab.

5 KATHERINE. OK. But why is she so very attractive?

6 CHRISTIANUS. Well, she is just very charming, very shapely, and very intelligent. She’s definitely a hottie.

7 KATHERINE. OK, OK! I get the picture. Go on.

8 CHRISTIANUS. All right. Radha’s perception is normal: all her senses are working in an orderly fashion. She can hear, see, taste, smell, and touch things; and she perceives the ordinary, day-to-day human world much like we do.

9 KATHERINE. OK.

10 CHRISTIANUS. But unlike us, she really knows how to practically use a transmission electron microscope. [58]

11 KATHERINE. All right.

12 CHRISTIANUS. Now, if Radha doesn’t turn the microscope’s power on, do you think that she can perceive any eukaryotic cells, with their typical membrane, nucleus, and nucleolus? [59]

13 KATHERINE. Well, maybe she has one of those colourful cell-structure posters hanging on a wall nearby?

14 CHRISTIANUS. That’s possible. But the question I had in mind was more like this: Can she perceive any cells through the lens system of her electron microscope if the microscope’s power is off?

15 KATHERINE. No.

16 CHRISTIANUS. In fact, she will not see any microscopic objects with her electron microscope if the power is off, will she?

17 KATHERINE. Probably not.

18 CHRISTIANUS. For unless the power is on, there is no image processing in the electron microscope?

19 KATHERINE. Sounds reasonable.

20 CHRISTIANUS. But yet Radha can see the colourful cell-structure poster hanging on the wall, if she looks at the wall?

21 KATHERINE. Yes.

22 CHRISTIANUS. And she can see her well-used, pink-coloured coffee machine on the bench across the room, if she turns her head that way?

23 KATHERINE. Yes.

24 CHRISTIANUS. By the way: should we order some coffee?

25 KATHERINE. Sure! An espresso for me.

26 CHRISTIANUS. OK. And I’ll go for a cappuccino. Waiter!

27 KATHERINE. You were saying?

28 CHRISTIANUS. Well, my point was that Radha’s general ability to perceive things in the day-to-day human world is not impaired when the electron microscope’s power is off.

29 KATHERINE. OK.

30 CHRISTIANUS. So what happens with Radha’s general ability to perceive things in the day-to-day human world when she suddenly flips the power switch on?

31 KATHERINE. Assuming that she isn’t electrocuted when she touches the power switch?

32 CHRISTIANUS. Of course.

33 KATHERINE. Nothing?

34 CHRISTIANUS. Excellent!

35 KATHERINE. But isn’t something happening when she turns the power on?

36 CHRISTIANUS. Sure, but not with her general ability to perceive.

37 KATHERINE. What, then?

38 CHRISTIANUS. Well, it’s just that the show starts. Radha can now perceive scenes of microscopic worlds, since there now is image processing going on in the electron microscope. Previously, when the power was off, she didn’t perceive any scenes of microscopic worlds, for there wasn’t any image processing going on in the electron microscope.

39 KATHERINE. And how does this connect to your original theory?

40 CHRISTIANUS. Well, my idea is this: it is not very surprising that Radha’s perception of the microscopic world would disappear if she flips the power switch off; for her ability to perceive the microscopic world through her electron microscope is completely dependent on the electron microscope’s processing of the images.

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Notes (SCENE XIII)

[57] XIII:2, Radha: Many Indian parents name their children Radha. The classical Sanskrit pronunciation (and corresponding spelling in Devanagari) of this ancient name is raadhaa (with two long ‘a’ sounds), and originally refers to ‘one of the most mysterious figures in all of Indian literature’ (Dimock, Jr. 1989, p. 595). Macdonnell's entry ‘raadhaa’ lists two occurrences of that name in ancient Indian literature: ‘f. N. of a cowherdess beloved of Krishna and later worshipped as a goddess; N. of Karna’s foster-mother’ (1924, p. 254).

E. C. DIMOCK, JR. (1989), ‘Raadhaa’ in Keith Crim, ed., The Perennial Dictionary of World Religions. New York, NY: Harper & Row. Original edition (1981): Abingdon Dictionary of Living Religions. Nashville, TN: Abingdon.

ARTHUR ANTHONY MACDONELL (1924), A Practical Sanskrit Dictionary with Transliteration, Accentuation, and Etymological Analysis Throughout. London, England: Oxford University Press.

[58] XIII:10, electron microscope: Christianus may here indicate that there is a difference between knowing how to use an electron microscope and really knowing how to use an electron microscope. Compare, for example, Rodenberg’s statement in regards to users of transmission electron microscopes: ‘there are a growing number of users who have amazingly little understanding of what actually goes on inside an electron column’ (2004, p. 9).

JOHN M. RODENBERG (2004), ‘Understanding Transmission Electron Microscope Alignment: A Tutorial’ in Microscopy and Analysis, vol. 18, no. 3, pp. 9–11.

[59] XIII:12, eukaryotic cells: Sylvia Mader (1990, pp. 61–62) publishes two nice transmission electron micrographs of eukaryotic cells: one animal cell (magnification: x 15,000) and one plant cell (magnification: x 20,000). Purves, Orians, Heller, and Sadava (1997, pp. 72–73) publish several electron micrographs of eukaryotic cells, and also use some nice graphics to illustrate the cellular structures of animal cells and plant cells.

WILLIAM K. PURVES, GORDON H. ORIANS, H. CRAIG HELLER, and DAVID SADAVA (1997), Life: The Science of Biology. Fourth edition. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates, Inc. and Salt Lake City, UT: W. H. Freeman and Company.

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HOW TO CITE: Bo C. Klintberg (2008), ‘Radha’s Microscope’ in Katherine’s Questionable Quest for Love and Happiness. Online edition of Philosophical Plays, 1 Jan. 2008. Retrieved [today’s date] from http://philosophicalplays.googlepages.com/pgKQQv1sc13.htm.

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