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Let’s Continue To TeachAbout Building Instruments

Ihave written before in this space in praise of InstrumentBuilders (1993, 65, 571 A; 2001, 73, 517 A). In the U.S.

and abroad, the communities that build commercial scientificinstruments are astute in their calculations that high-quality,reliable analytical chemistry instruments are a valued com-modity and that an instrument will draw a market if its capa-bilities target contemporary needs. As I teach an undergradu-ate instrumental analysis class this spring, I am reminded ofhow thoroughly the analytical academic community has ac-cepted what the Instrument Builders offer for sale. We takeoff-the-shelf analytical instruments as a given, and we rely ontheir sophistication. That’s a wonderful result in the develop-ment of our science, and I have no complaints here aboutvendors of instruments.

However, there was a time when, if you needed an instru-ment for some measurement, no vendor was available—youalways had to build it yourself. And in the course of doingthat, you were conscious of potential S/N problems; of schemesexploiting differential amplifiers, frequency modulation, andthe like; of where the instrument needed an operational-am-plifier component; and, in more recent years, of how a per-sonal computer interacted with the instrument to capture thedata. Looking back, it’s possible to see a natural progressionin which, gradually and without question, more and moreblack-box components have been inserted into instrument cir-cuits at the proper places. Components with reliable and pre-dictable functional capabilities thus become part of the In-strument Builders’ wallpaper. As a researcher, you know theseelements of instrument design from your undergraduate andgraduate analytical chemistry courses. Many analytical chem-istry faculties still provide this kind of basic instruction, but inmy perception it is an increasingly localized phenomenon.

The issue above is part of an unending educational ques-tion: How should the finite amount of instructional time inundergraduate and graduate courses be attuned to teach thestudents what will matter the most to the progress of science?I have always advocated that topics not essential for studentsto function in the modern scientific world be given less andless lecture time—and in the end, none. Should the same bethe case for instrument building? Is the chemistry communitybeing lulled by our happy reliance on the highly competentcommercial Instrument Builders into forgetting how to buildinstruments ourselves? There is a generational componenthere: Are younger analytical chemists (and other youngerchemists who contribute to our subdiscipline), who have beentaught fewer instrument-building skills, becoming less pro-ductive in exploring new measurements—untouched by com-mercial instrument capabilities—because of a lack of suchskills?

I hope that I am tilting at windmills here, but I fear that Iam not. Subdisciplines in science rise and fall because of thecreativity and productivity of their participants. A few yearsago, Richard Zare wrote one of these editorials to address aconcern about federal funding for instrument design (2000,72, 5 A); there may be cause for an equal concern rooted inour own teaching. In the long haul, analytical chemists wholack skills to build equipment for measuring chemical phe-nomena will become less competitive with those who createthe phenomena.

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