Being a learned scholar in the English language, I'm sure you, as an learned scholar, would agree that a word's meaning can only be gaged with context.
For example: I have five bucks.....am I a hunter? What about an American with a little cash in my pocket? Maybe, five of my children have attended OSU.
In the context of "zoom" when relating to photographic arts, Zoom Lens, the accepted meaning is, "a mechanical assembly of lens elements for which the focal length (and thus angle of view) can be varied, as opposed to a fixed focal length (FFL) lens (see prime lens). They are commonly used with still, video, motion picture cameras, projectors, some binoculars, microscopes, telescopes, telescopic sights, and other optical instruments."
"magnification: the ratio of the size of an image to the size of the object"
These are two very different uses. Magnification and zoom are very different in photography. They refer to entirely different concepts and are not equatable.
I'm sure you are an excellent optical designer, but your expertise is in the optical (and from what I read of you, microscopic) arts, not photographic arts. Please, like the previous posters before you, stick with your expertise area, advise on it, but do not speak as an expert in a subject in which you have minimal qualifications. It's dangerous for people like yourself to make policy.
So long, and I'm glad you liked the fish :-).