Beakman’s World - Season 1 Episode 13

Noting that microscopes have been used to unlock some of nature's biggest and smallest wonders, Beakman introduces their inventor, Zacharias Janssen. After insisting that Anton Van Leeuwenhoek did not invent the microscope, but only the lens commonly known as a magnifying glass, Janssen goes on to explain how his addition of a second lens was the advance that produced the device we use today. Then, with help from his Boguscope, Beakman shows how this pair of lenses refract light to enlarge an image, and then treats Josie and Lester to a look at the creatures living in a drop of pond water. During "Beak-Mania," Beakman explains the difference between a weasel and an ermine (none), what color attracts mosquitoes best (blue), and the name of the smallest dinosaur (compsognathus). When Lester is asked to turn Beakman upside down just by looking at him, he is stumped. So, using a cardboard box and a single sheet of white paper, Beakman constructs a "camera obscura," a simple optical device that limits the passage of light to make objects appear inverted. After helping Josie bandage a wound inflicted by a bicycle accident, Beakman is questioned about how cuts heal. With a brick wall serving as a model of a magnified section of skin, red balloons as red blood cells, wads of paper as white blood cells, and paper plates as blood platelets, Beakman demonstrates how these three components of blood act together to promote healing.