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hey, so random thought, the flat bit on a microscope where you put your slides it called a "stage", is it called that because the the microscope was invented at a time when people still went to the theatre?
hey, so random thought, the flat bit on a microscope where you put your slides it called a "stage", is it called that because the the microscope was invented at a time when people still went to the theatre?
@quirk I think that's not far off, but probably not quite why it's called a stage
In that both the raised platform of a theatrical stage and the adjustable-height/levels of a microscope stage share the same origin.
Which is that "stage" used to be another way of referring to the storey (floor level) of a building, and I imagine the other meanings derived from that.
With a microscope stage being adjustable in height and thus the oldest ones probably having less fine-grained adjustments that modern ones, they may very well have literally had numbered "stages" (floors/elevation) to refer to the different levels.