Scientific instrument

Further information: Equipment (disambiguation)

A scientific instrument is an instrument used for scientific purposes. Most are measurement instruments. They may be specifically designed, constructed and refined for the purpose. Over time, instruments have become more accurate and precise.

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). This can give Internet access to databases of physical properties, for example a peptide spectral library allowing results comparisons and advanced data analysis. Developers have used open source principles borrowed from the software industry to rapidly improve low-cost open-source hardware for scientific measurements and to create open source labs.

Some scientific instruments can be quite large in size, like particle colliders or radio-telescope antennas and antenna arrays that are miles or kilometers wide. The converse or nanoscale also has been applied, with much of the activity centered on nanomedicine, particularly as non-invasive medical imaging has exploded on the diagnostic arts and minimally invasive surgery and surgical robotics have come into use. 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 radio telecommunication.

List of scientific instruments

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

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List of scientific instruments manufacturers

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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

See also

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

See also

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