Editing Instrumentation (section)

==Impact of modern development==
Ralph Müller (1940) stated, "That the history of physical science is largely the history of instruments and their intelligent use is well known. The broad generalizations and theories which have arisen from time to time have stood or fallen on the basis of accurate measurement, and in several instances new instruments have had to be devised for the purpose. There is little evidence to show that the mind of modern man is superior to that of the ancients. His tools are incomparably better."<ref name="Katz">{{cite book|last1=Katz|first1=Eric|last2=Light|first2=Andrew|last3=Thompson|first3=William|title=Controlling technology : contemporary issues|date=2002|publisher=Prometheus Books|location=Amherst, NY|isbn=978-1573929837|edition=2nd|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nny8OoQCZCoC&pg=PA88|access-date=9 March 2016}}</ref><ref name="Baird"/>{{rp|290}}

Davis Baird has argued that the major change associated with [[Floris Cohen]]{{'}}s identification of a "fourth big scientific revolution" after [[World War II]] is the development of scientific instrumentation, not only in [[chemistry]] but across the sciences.<ref name="Baird">{{cite journal
|last1=Baird|first1=D.
|title=Analytical chemistry and the 'big' scientific instrumentation revolution
|journal=Annals of Science|date=1993|volume=50|issue=3
|pages=267–290|quote=Download the pdf to read the full article.|doi=10.1080/00033799300200221}}</ref><ref name="Morris">{{cite book|last1=Baird|first1=D.|chapter=Analytical chemistry and the 'big' scientific instrumentation revolution|editor-last1=Morris|editor-first1=Peter J. T.|title=From classical to modern chemistry : the instrumental revolution; from a conference on the history of chemical instrumentation: "From the Test-tube to the Autoanalyzer: the Development of Chemical Instrumentation in the Twentieth Century", London, in August 2000 |date=2002|publisher=Royal Society of Chemistry in assoc. with the Science Museum|location=Cambridge|isbn=9780854044795|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AAf8sk_v2SEC&pg=PA52|pages=29–56}}</ref>  In chemistry, the introduction of new instrumentation in the 1940s was "nothing less than a scientific and technological revolution"<ref name="Reinhardt"/>{{rp|28–29}} in which classical wet-and-dry  methods of structural organic chemistry were discarded, and new areas of research opened up.<ref name="Reinhardt">{{cite book|editor-last1=Reinhardt|editor-first1=Carsten|title=Chemical sciences in twentieth century|date=2001|publisher=Wiley-VCH|location=Weinheim|isbn=978-3527302710|edition=1st|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gIOK5EUm5ysC&pg=PA28}}</ref>{{rp|38}}

As early as 1954, W. A. Wildhack discussed both the productive and destructive potential inherent in process control.<ref name="Wildhack">{{cite journal|last1=Wildhack|first1=W. A.|title=Instrumentation—Revolution in Industry, Science, and Warfare|journal=Science|date=22 October 1954|volume=120|issue=3121|pages=15A|doi=10.1126/science.120.3121.15A|pmid=17816144|bibcode=1954Sci...120A..15W|doi-access=}}</ref>
The ability to make precise, verifiable and reproducible measurements of the natural world, at levels that were not previously observable, using scientific instrumentation, has "provided a different texture of the world".<ref name="Hentschel"/> This instrumentation revolution fundamentally changes human abilities to monitor and respond, as is illustrated in the examples of [[DDT]] monitoring and the use of [[Ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy|UV spectrophotometry]] and [[gas chromatography]] to monitor [[water pollutants]].<ref name="Morris"/><ref name="Hentschel">{{cite journal|last1=Hentschel|first1=Klaus|title=The Instrumental Revolution in Chemistry (Review Essay)|journal=Foundations of Chemistry|date=2003|volume=5|issue=2|pages=179–183|doi=10.1023/A:1023691917565|s2cid=102255170 }}</ref>