You are provided with a 1 cm3 of biological sample from which 0.1 mm thin sections are cut. A search for virus cells at a magnification of 100,000 has been proposed. The fluorescent screen on which the image is to be projected has a diameter of 15 cm.
1. How many fields need to be searched to cover an area of 0.1 mm2?
2. What percentage of the unique sample does the searched volume represent?
3. Remark on the significance of the calculated values.