Why do images produced by a light microscope appear inverted and upside down?

Answer 1

Wow it does? Amazing I'm a Bio student and my teachers never taught me that!

anyways here's my guess: Since it's a mirror, it's inverted? I learnt about reflection - mirrors in physics last year... I'm not sure whether my hypothesis is correct cause my physics is horrible...

Answer 2

It would be easier to explain with a graphic but here goes.
I will start with a pinhole camera. That is a box that has a tiny hole in one side. Devices with lenses would have the same result but I find this device easier to visualize. All descriptions are based on an observer behind the camera looking toward the camera.
All light in an environment in which people can live moves in very straight lines. The hole through which light is allowed to enter the pinhole camera is small. These two facts mean that light from a particular point on the object being photographed reaches a small area of the back of the camera.
Light from the left side of the area being viewed goes to the right on the backside of the box.
Light from the right side of the area being viewed goes to the left on the backside of the box.
Light from the top of the area being viewed goes to the bottom part of the backside of the box.
Light from the bottom of the area being viewed goes to the top part of the backside of the box.

In this way the picture of a person would be perceived to be upside down and swapped left to right when viewed from behind the camera. In most microscopes there are multiple lenses. I assume that the microscope you are using has an odd number of lenses and thus repeating this analysis for each lens would result in the image swapping for each lens and when the number of lenses is odd the image is upside down and backwards.