Scientific instrument

Further information: Equipment (disambiguation)

A scientific instrument can be any type of equipment, apparatus or device as is specifically designed, constructed and often, through trial and error, ingeniously refined to apply utmost efficiency in the utilization of well proven physical principle, relationship or technology to facilitate or enable the pursuit, acquisition, transduction and storage of repeatable, verifiable data, usually consisting of sets numerical measurements made upon otherwise unknown, unproven quantities, properties, phenomena, materials, forces or etc., preferably as those characterized over time by an increasing degree of accuracy and precision and, typically, those initially derived as isolated or dependent variable results from, or empirical observations made during, the course of such experimental procedures as are firmly based upon the scientific method and long accepted tenants of experimental design.

Scientific instruments are part of laboratory equipment, but are considered more sophisticated and more specialized than other measuring instruments as scales, meter sticks, chronometers, thermometers or even power or waveform generators. They are increasingly based upon the integration of computers to improve and simplify control, enhance and extend instrumental functions, conditions, parameter adjustments and data sampling, collection, resolution, analysis (both during and post-process), storage and retrieval. Individual instruments can also be connected as a local area network (LAN) and can be further integrated as part of a laboratory information management system (LIMS), that in addition to having Internet access to databases of such physical properties as compound spectra libraries through the World Wide Web for results comparisons and advanced data analysis as well as the obvious usefulness of now ubiquitous email for rapid exchange of informational text and images, consultation and peer review. Recently, the development have utilizied open source principles borrowed from the software industry to rapidly improve low-cost open-source hardware for scientific measurements.

Some scientific instruments can be quite large in size, like particle colliders that can be several miles in circumference or radio-telescope antennas and antenna arrays used in astrophysics. As you might expect, the converse or nanoscale also has been added to the list of the realm of scientific instrument applications and research, with much of the activity centered around the use of miniaturization in the field of medicine, particularly as non-invasive imaging has exploded on the diagnostic arts and minimally invasive tools and robotics have extended the reach of surgeons of every stripe. In fact, instruments on the scale of a single molecule may soon interact with our bodies at the cellular and biochemical level to collect diagnostic information and provide highly precise medication delivery mechanisms.

Scientific instruments can be found on board sounding rockets, satellites or planetary rovers and controlled by radiotelecommunication.

List of scientific instruments

For lists of astronomical instruments, see List of telescope types and List of astronomical interferometers at visible and infrared wavelengths.

• Accelerometer, physical, acceleration
• Ammeter, electrical, Amperage, current
• Anemometer, wind speed
• Caliper, distance
• Calorimeter, heat
• DNA sequencer, molecular biology
• Dynamometer, torque
• Electrometer, electric charge, potential difference
• Electroscope, electric charge
• Electrostatic analyzer, Kinetic energy of charged particles
• Ellipsometer, optical refractive indices
• Gravimeter, gravity
• Inclinometer, slope
• Interferometer, optics, infrared light spectra
• Magnetograph, magnetic field
• Magnetometer, magnetic flux
• Mass spectrometer, compound identification/characterization
• Micrometer, distance
• Microscope, optical magnification
• NMR spectrometer, chemical compound identification, medical diagnostic imaging
• Ohmmeter, electrical resistance/impedance
• Oscilloscope, electric signal voltage, amplitude, wavelength, frequency, waveform shape/pattern
• Seismometer, acceleration
• Spectogram, sound frequency, wavelength, amplitude
• Spectrometer, light frequency, wavelength, amplitude
• Telescope, light magnification (astronomy)
• Time-of-flight mass spectrometer, see mass spectrometer
• Theodolite, angles, surveying
• Thermocouple, temperature
• Voltmeter, voltage

List of scientific instruments manufacturers

• 454 Life Sciences, United States of America
• Agilent Technologies, United States of America
• A. Reyrolle & Company
• Beckman Coulter, United States of America
• Bruker Biosciences Corporation
• Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company, United Kingdom
• Horiba, Japan
• JEOL, Japan
• LECO Corporation, United States of America
• Malvern Instruments, United Kingdom
• McPherson Inc, United States of America
• MTS Systems Corporation, USA, mechanical
• Novacam Technologies, Canada
• Oxford Instruments, United Kingdom
• Pall Corp., United States of America
• PerkinElmer, United States of America
• Polymer Char, Spain
• Shimadzu Corp., Japan
• Techtron, Melbourne, Australia
• Thermo Fisher Scientific, United States of America
• Waters Corporation, United States of America

List of scientific instruments designers

See also: List of astronomical instrument makers, Category:Scientific instrument makers, and Worshipful Company of Scientific Instrument Makers

• Jones, William
• Kipp, Petrus Jacobus
• Le Bon, Gustave
• Roelofs, Arjen
• Schöner, Johannes
• Von Reichenbach, Georg Friedrich

History of scientific instruments

• History of science and technology in the People's Republic of China

Museums

• Boerhaave Museum
• Deutsches Museum
• Royal Victoria Gallery for the Encouragement of Practical Science
• Whipple Museum of the History of Science

Types of scientific instruments

• Optical instrument
• Electronic test equipment

Related topics

• Instrumentation
• Instrumentalism, a philosophic theory
• List of collectibles

See also

• tron, a suffix to denote a complex scientific instrument, like in cyclotron, phytotron, synchrotron, ...