26. The Invisible World All Around Us

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/02/the-invisible-worlds-all-around-us/273444/

Alexis C. Madrigal affirms that the microscopic world all around us deserves more marvel than people usually recognize. Madrigal starts off by acknowledging how much the microscopes have changed our lives and that we can no longer even imagine life without it. He relates to the feature for Aeon magazine, by Phillip Ball, and quotes a main selection to inform how extreme and wondrous the invention of the microscope had been for the human kind; not just technologically, but theologically as well. However, he quotes, that "there was nothing especially new about the idea of invisible worlds and creatures" because "belief in immaterial spirits, angels and demons was still widespread." Madrigal includes that people "drew on what they knew, religion, superstition, or even simply human life" since they had not yet a way of interpreting such microscopic wonders. Madrigal supports this statement with a text from the "late 19th century," quoting that a physicist George Johnstone Stoney claimed "that the physical universe is really an infinite series of worlds within words" and that scientist Edmund Fournier d'Albe believed that the microscopic world were mad of tiny 'infra-men,' making up a scale of a whole new world within us. In conclusion, Madrigal implies that the technology and the wonder of the microscopic world has "not received a sufficient amount of attention as a probe for meaning." This he accomplishes especially by comparing with people's typical marveling reaction at the "stars and galaxies that we now know exist," while there is a world just as wondrous, right in front of us.

Madrigal's purpose of presenting this article is to point attention and recognition toward the fascinating microscopic world and the technology which have led us to it. Madrigal relies heavily on the text from the past to demonstrate the actual impact of the revealing of the microscopic world to the human kind in a more realistic and intimate level. He intends this article toward an audience with basic understanding of the biological and microscopical discoveries in human history. With a level of factual writing that is easily understood, Madrigal focuses on the impacts of the microscopical technology on people rather than in science. He is able to effectively convey his purpose of appreciating the discovery of the microscopic world.