On being a scientist. I was one of those kids who was serious about everything I did, and I did what I mistook for serious science when I was still in high school. With some free parts from two uncles, a bottle of mercury and a helical potentiometer donated byBeckman Instruments, I managed to build a simple polarograph for a science fair. So when people say scientists are "different" I don't object. Sure, it's a stereotype, but if you checked out the empty
Electrochemistry? You may remember the technique from undergraduate days as little more than a curiosity (the way the liberal arts majors remember you). Today, electrochemical analysis can do some things no other technique can do, and it does others better... or faster... or to lower detection levels. The instrumentation has all been brought up to the state of the art. You can focus on results, not the
Electrochemical Analysis— Think of it as a mountain bike for the mind. casinos the last time Pittcon played Atlantic City, you can understand why it exists.
complexity of the technique. Computer control (even Windows™) provides storage and manipulation capabilities.
On advertising to scientists.
On where electrochemistry
Granting the stereotype, I don't know why our journals are cluttered with ads that seem to have been designed with no thought to their audience. The people I know avoid them like the plague.
fits in. If you're researching buckyballs, metal complexes, room temperature superconductors, heterogeneous catalysis... if your work involves determining formal redox potentials, obtaining electron transfer numbers, measuring the ? reaction of intermediates and I unstable species... hey, there's lots more. And they're all destinations to which electrochemistry can take you, quickly, flawlessly, like a mountain bike through an Alpine forest.
Pete Kissinger
Look at it this way: most scientists do their best work by the time they're 35 years old. If we want to reach the top, we had better get there fast. So we don't have time for the brag-andboast of advertising, we need to know if the product can help us reach our destination. On choosing an analytical technique. Success in analytical chemistry depends on selecting the right tool for the measurement challenge. Many still try to hit nails with a saw or cut wood with a hammer, when it would be so much easier to do the reverse. Even then, it is too limiting to restrict the choice to the two most generally useful tools— spectroscopy and chromatography.
On knowing when to shut up. If you're interested in learning more about electrochemical analysis in its modern form, the sponsor of this message is eager to talk to you. As for me, I've probably said enough. I don't want to risk sounding like I'm advertising something. Serious science for serious scientists
BAS Bioanalytical Systems, Inc. BAS Japan · 36-4,1-Chome · Oshiage, Sumida-Ku · Tbkyo 131, Japan · PH (81) 3 3624 0367 · FAX (81) 3 3624 0940 BAS Europe · Dellingstraat, 34-1, B-2800 Mechelen Belgium · PH (32) 15 43 22 31 · FAX (32) 15 43 23 85 Bioanalytical Systems, Inc. · 2701 Kent Ave · West Lafayette, IN USA 47906 · PH (317) 463-4527 · FAX (317) 497-1102 CIRCLE 15 ON READER SERVICE CARD
196 A · ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY, VOL. 65, NO. 4, FEBRUARY 15, 1993
