I am a physics novice.
Google tells me that electron microscopes work much like their optical counterparts -- but the analogy falls apart for me when I think about what I'm "viewing." Obviously, you can see light through the lenses, but what is the "image" analog for electron microscopes?
Is it at-all like spraying an invisible shape with bullets and examining where collisions took place? Like if you shot at an invisible car with a tommy gun and were able to make out bullet holes -- so that the more bullets you shoot the better your image?
And, just for completeness, I suspect this implies that the best resolution you can get is the bullet-size, or in this case the size of the electron. How do you map "objects" or whatever they are considered on that scale if they are smaller than an electron? Is our perception of how small we can see limited by this cap?