Sign up ×  After watching some ants in my garden today, and then
looking at this very illuminating demonstration, I got to
wondering, about what they would see. Not specifically ants (I
understand their eyesight is quite poor), but similarly small,
or even smaller creatures.  I guess I'm asking more about the
nature of light and how photons are reflected off very small
surfaces. Would a very small creature, like say, an ant, with
vision, be able to see something as small as a single e. coli
bacterium? or a virus? Would their world 'look' the same as ours
or does the viewers relative size have a bearing on the quality
of their perception?  And additionally beyond the realm of
reality, if I could shrink myself down to the size of a
bacterium, could I see atoms?  share|cite|improve this question
One of the unfortunate laws of nature is that to see more detail
you inevitably need bigger and more complex optics. –  Martin
Beckett Jul 23 '12 at 20:28 @MartinBeckett This is true of
optics that see the farfield, but