Scientific instrument

“ In fact, all truly great advances are thus derived from fundamental science, and the future progress of the world will be largely dependent upon the provision made for scientific research, especially in the fields of physics and chemistry, which underlie all branches of engineering. ”

“ This is through real contact with animals, plants, rocks, chemical compounds and physical instruments, and a well-conducted scientific laboratory has the same value as out-of-doors experience, with the great addition that it can be made systematic and therefore effective for power. ”

“ A chemical laboratory, a physical laboratory, scales, standards of measure, specific gravities, thermal, barometrical, electrical units, more minute calculations, would represent the variety necessary, covering the scientific parts more minutely, but by no means dispensing with actual shop practice and thorough work in it. ”

“ In most of the sciences this deeper exercise of scientific thought requires for its successful pursuit artificial aids to the common senses of observation. Chemistry must have its purified acids and reagents, test tubes, and delicate scales for measurement of weight and volume. ”

“ Hence, while Chemistry and Biology, even apart from the possibility of their conversion into branches of applied Mechanics, are essentially descriptive sciences, the task fulfilled by them, so far as they use qualitative and teleological categories, is one of æsthetic and historical rather than of properly scientific description. ”

“ In a word, the general state of physical science, at the present moment, the vigour, activity, and sagacity with which researches in it are prosecuted in every civilized country, the increasing consideration in which scientific (p. 307) men are held, and the personal honours and rewards which begin to be conferred upon them, all justify the expectation that we are on the eve of mechanical discoveries still greater than any which have yet appeared ”

“ The topics comprise chiefly those great applications of mechanical engineering and arts, and of physical and chemical science, in which every intelligent person feels concerned; while some articles are devoted to certain purely scientific discoveries that have excited general interest. ”

“ Instances might be given proving how, in Science, an advance of one division presently advances other divisions—how Astronomy has been immensely forwarded by discoveries in Optics, while other optical discoveries have initiated Microscopic Anatomy, and greatly aided the growth of Physiology—how Chemistry has indirectly increased our knowledge of Electricity, Magnetism, Biology, Geology—how Electricity has reacted on Chemistry and Magnetism, and has developed our views of Light and Heat. ”

“ Almost all the processes employed in the arts and manufactures fall within the range either of physics or of chemistry. In order to improve them, one must thoroughly understand them; and no one has a chance of really understanding them who has not obtained that mastery of principles and that habit of dealing with facts which is given by long-continued and well-directed purely scientific training in the physical and the chemical laboratory. ”

“ These observations are commonplaces in the laboratory and in the department of research. They have filtered through to thinking people who begin to understand the part that experiment plays in all forms of scientific progress. There is a general agreement that if there is to be an increase in the knowledge that men possess regarding the mechanical forces, the only sure way of gaining this knowledge is to weigh, measure, describe and classify. ”

“ Thus, soon after the invention of the microscope, the field it presented to observation was cultivated by men of the first rank in science, and who enriched almost every branch of natural history by the discoveries made by means of this instrument. ”

“ THE TELESCOPE AND MICROSCOPE.—Among the instruments which have promoted the extension of science, the microscope, with its modern improvements, is one of the most interesting. It has aided discovery in botany, in physiology, in mineralogy, and in almost all other branches of science. ”

“ Moreover, so vast is the scope of the instrument, that whilst discoveries in other fields of research are few and far between, comparatively speaking, in microscopic science they are of everyday occurrence, and the number of problems calling for solution by means of the instrument in question is so vast that even the humblest worker may be of the greatest assistance. ”

“ But it is sufficiently evident that, before the engineer can determine what form of machine will best yield to him full control of these forces of Nature, he must have sufficient knowledge of science to be able to understand what scientific principles are to be rendered available, and what phenomena of Nature are operating in the production of the power which he is to seize upon and usefully to apply. ”

“ Among the preliminary subjects we should mention elementary mechanics, including hydrostatics and pneumatics, and also thermotics; while electricity, acoustics, and optics, including the large subject of radiant energy, may well be deferred until after the study of chemistry.
In the study both of chemistry and physics there are of course two definite objects to be kept in view: In the first place, a knowledge of the facts of the science is to be acquired; in the second place, the student must learn by experience how these facts have been discovered. ”

“ We shall assume, in our treatment of the subject, a knowledge of the microscope as an instrument of research, such as can be easily acquired in a few weeks of work under the guidance of a teacher or of one of the excellent manuals which now abound. ”

“ The question would be to find a mechanical instrument, to discover in each person the degree of heat and motion of this animal liquid, in order to discern what any one is fit for, and to employ him accordingly. ”

“ Science in the open air, in the fields, in the sunshine, is our first study; we point out how, in the country, it is possible, pleasantly and unceasingly, to occupy one’s leisure in observing nature, in capturing insects or aquatic animals, or in noting atmospheric phenomena.
We next teach a complete course of physics without any apparatus, and point out the methods for studying the different phenomena [Pg v] of heat, light, optics, and electricity, by means of a simple water-bottle, tumbler, stick of sealing-wax, and other ordinary objects, such as everyone has at hand. ”

“ There was then no occasion for those delicate instruments of precision which are now found in every physical laboratory by means of which the man of science is able to investigate phenomena and determine laws that were quite unknown until a few years ago. ”

“ In the study of chemistry, experiments and actual observation of the behavior of substances under various conditions, are indispensable; in physics, multifarious appliances for the illustration of principles are constantly required; in astronomy. the telescope is absolutely essential; and, in biology, vast departments can be brought within our reach only by the aid of the microscope. This latter instrument, especially, has a wide range of application. The investigations of the anatomist and physiologist cannot go on without it; the educated physician has it in daily use ”

“ In natural philosophy, chemistry and astronomy we need apparatus—not the costly instruments of precision, but plain, cheap pieces, that are fitted to illustrate and in some cases demonstrate the many and various principles that are taught. ”

“ But it is also true that the scientific research activities in other branches,359 like biology, which are not closely connected with the electromagnetic theory and its applications, have also blossomed up with wonderful rapidity during the last twenty-five years. ”

“ Anyone conversant with a single branch of Natural Science is aware that experiment, as well as observation, is necessary. Who would expect discoveries in physics, or in chemistry, without laboratories and experiments? Do not botanists investigate the functions of plants by dissection, by microscopic and chemical investigation, and by experiment? ”

“ In this divine mechanism all intricate and enduring machines are combined in one. Imagine an instrument so delicate as to be at once a telescope and microscope, at one moment witnessing the flight of a sun hundreds of millions of miles away, then quickly adjusted for seeing the point of the finest needle! ”

“ Every instrument of precision used in the laboratory should be a standard of its kind, the best which could be made; otherwise the work of the institution might fall short of the high character intended for it. So also with the chemicals: only the best should be tolerated. ”

“ The astronomer, the electrician, the chemist, the mineralogist, the botanist, are constantly called upon to perform manual operations of exceeding delicacy. The progress of all branches of physical science depends upon observation, or on that artificial observation which is termed experiment, of one kind or another; and, the farther we advance, the more practical difficulties surround the investigation of the conditions of the problems offered to us; so that mobile and yet steady hands, guided by clear vision, are more and more in request in the workshops of science. ”

“ After having enumerated the scientific attainments necessary to constitute the chemist, and described the apparatus essential for understanding what has been already done in the science, he proceeds to define the intellectual qualities which he considers necessary for discovery, or for the advancement of the science. Amongst them, patience, industry, and neatness in manipulation, and accuracy and minuteness in observing and registering the phenomena which occur, are essential. A steady hand and a quick eye are most useful auxiliaries ”

“ These reasoners never looked for any powers of a higher order than the cohesion, the resistance, the gravity, the attraction, which operate in inert matter. If the chemical school assimilated the physician to a vintner or brewer, the mechanical physiologists made him an hydraulic engineer; and, in fact, several of the iatromathematicians were at the same time teachers of engineering and of medicine. ”

“ It has required three centuries of scientific thought and of subtle inventions for its promotion to enable a modern chemist or physicist to center his attention on electrons and their relation to the mysterious nucleus of the atom, or to permit an embryologist to study the early stirrings of the fertilized egg. ”

“ What an important influence may be exercised over the progress of a single branch of science by the invention of a ready and convenient mode of executing a definite measurement, and the construction and common introduction of an instrument adapted for it cannot be better exemplified than by the instance of the reflecting goniometer. ”

“ Whether in the laboratory of the chemist or the physicist, in the machine shop or the engine-room, every means of measurement must be based on standards created with the highest skill and guarded with the utmost care. ”

“ Scientists were now furnished with the telescope, compass, sextant, microscope, barometer, thermometer, air pump, manometer, and other instruments so that cellular structures of plants, animals, and insects, the microbes and bacteria, the animalculæ found in water and in the sea, as well as the phenomena of the air, sky, and earth crust could now be studied by trained observers. The invention of these instruments caused workers to specialize more and more, and completely severed science from philosophy, of which it had been an appendage since the earliest times. ”

“ Some of you are aware that in the early stages of their growth, when they are still beyond the grasp of the microscope, such particles, no matter what the substance may be of which they are composed, shed forth a pure firmamental blue; and that from them we can manufacture in the laboratory artificial skies which display all the phenomena, both of color and polarization, of the real firmament. ”

“ The accurate and elaborate instruments which serve for the delicate and precise determinations and observations of modern science require for their production a very advanced state of mechanical art, such as is indicated by the perfection of the tools we described in a former article; and these tools are themselves, on the other hand, the outcome of accurate knowledge, and another proof of the interaction between science and practical art. ”

“ From these considerations it must be evident that the usefulness of the physical laboratory can not be inferred from the benefits derived from the laboratory teaching of chemistry, but must be judged by a scale of values peculiarly its own. We have called physics an exact science. ”

“ Secure every fiber of it and examine it under the microscope. You would better attend to that, Frank, as you are familiar with the instrument. If you discover anything foreign to a place like this, let me know. ”

“ You are in the prime of life, in the beginning of your career, and you have powers and acquirements capable of illustrating and extending every branch of physical enquiry; and, in the field of science, how many are the spots not yet cultivated! Where the laws of sensible become connected with those of insensible motions, the mechanical with the chemical phenomena, how little is known! In electricity, magnetism, in the relations of crystallized forms to the weight of the elements of bodies, what a number of curious and important objects of research! ”

“ Are we to ascribe to the operation of a fluid or fluids, and if so, in what manner, the facts of heat, magnetism, electricity, galvanism? What are the forces by which the elements of chemical compounds are held together? What are the forces, of a higher order, as we cannot help believing, by which the course of vital action in organized bodies is kept up? In these and other cases, we have extensive departments of science; but we are as yet unable to trace the effects to their causes; and our science, so far as it is positive and certain, consists entirely of the laws of phenomena. ”