system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5:If we can build massive telescopes to gaze into space why can't we build massive microscopes to gaze further into the sub-atomic level?
gpt
Telescopes use light. That is a simple statement, yes, but it is important. Light is a particle, and it reacts with things as if it had a physical size - it's wavelength.

That wavelength is a few hundred nanometers. Trying to see atoms with light is like trying to see marbles by throwing basketballs at them, and seeing how they bounce off. We need smaller things - higher energy light, for instance, like X-rays, with shorter wavelengths, or tiny particles like electrons. With these, we can produce images of atoms and molecules.

TLDR: Light is too big. In order to see something, we need something smaller than it to see with.