Before Russell Kerschmann came along, the world through a microscope looked much the way people perceived the world at large to be before Columbus set sail: flat. Microscopes let us see an object's surface and get some sense of its insides, but its true three-dimensional architecture remained a mystery. No one knew exactly how the two parts of Velcro attach, or precisely how the network of pores in a paper towel enable it to suck up water, or even how the three different layers that make up our skin interact.