MicrobeHunter.com Microscopy Forum

Likely a beginner's question. First time I said "DIC microscopy" out loud, and to a group with a sense of humor, it occurred to me that the industry might spell it out rather than go on as if it were every Tom, Dic, and Harry.

How's it referred to in industry or academia??

DIC: Differential interference contrast microscopy, also known as Nomarski interference contrast.

In my head I always pronounce it Dee Eye See.
CE

I hear your (smirk!) quandary regards to: 'DIC'. As a 'babyboomer' I had trepidation with saying: 'Dick' for folks named Richard! I've adjusted to this usage of: 'dick'. But my 1964 text (early early days of biologists embracing 'DIC' microscopy...well circa 1964..the gamut of 'DIC' microscopes were termed: interference microscopes.

At formal talks, use of: "DIC microscopy" is legitimate and proper, to my sense of encountered publications in refereed journals. Charlie Guevara BTW...I still sense it crude to in public talk of: "anal personality tendancies"...this I feel is not a cultural handicap on my part...simply too graphic a choice of words...go figure!? thanks for this posting!

I'd love to purchase a sensible DIC microscope system ( I'm con-USA) for my freshwater live protist/meiofauna microscopy.

Intersting point. I always say "DICK". Not D-I-C.

PZO called their version the Polarizing Interference Microscope. No mention of Nomarski. Baker , in the 1950's used the term Interference Microscope. AO used a modified version of the Baker and called it an Interference MIcroscope and then there were Interferometers.

It depends to some degree, whether the prisms employed are Wollaston Prisms or Nomarski Prisms, as to whether the term Nomarski is included , as in Nomarski DIC or sometimes D I C after Nomarski. There were patents involved in the Nomarski system, so companies like PZO, probably sought to get around the patents by making a modified version. The manual I have covering the entire PZO system (95 pages) never once mentions Nomarski nor uses the letters DIC. Reference is made to a PI microscope, though.

As an aside. There is an old long standing family name in my area. The Heads, and of course eventually, one of the offspring had to be named Richard.