EDITORIAL
October 1966, Vol. 38, No. 11 -~
Editor: HERBERT A. WTINEN
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AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY PUBLICATIONS Director of Publications, Richard L. Kenyon Alsutant Director of P u b l h t w M and Director of Research Journals, Richard H. Belknap Direebr of Bwiness Operations, Joseph H. Kuney E m u t i w Alsistant to the Director of Publications, Rodney N . HadAlswtant & the Director of P U M ~ b M William Q. Hull REGIONAL EDITORIAL BUREAUS NEW YORK, N . Y. 733 Third Ave.
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The Aim of Analysis To many and perhaps most chemists, the object of chemical analysis is to obtain the composition of a sample. It may seem a small and niggling point that the analysis of a sample is not the true aim of analytical chemistry, because the sample merely is a selected and, hopefully, a representative portion of the subject under scrutiny. Thus the analyst may establish the percentage of iron in a specimen in a sample vial, but the real purpose of the analysis is to solve a problem, for example, to estimate the amount of iron in a carload of ore which the sample wm designed to represent as faithfully as possible. To focus all attention upon the sample is to seriously restrict the scope of analytical chemistry. There are many situations in which it is not feasible or even necessary to take samples, and yet where analysis plays a vital role. This situation is clarified if attention is properly focused upon the analytical problem rather than upon the sample. I n a recent publication [W. N. Hansen, R. A. Osteryoung, and T. Kuwana, J. Am. Chem. SOC.88, 1062 (1966)], the problem was to determine the concentration of an electrode reaction product at the electrode surface as a function of time to test whether diffusion theory adequately accounts for the observed results or whether secondary effects such as adsorption or convection take part. The problem was attacked by measuring the absorption of light using internal reflectance spectroscopy with a transparent electrode. Surely the determination of concentration as a function of time is an analytical operation; yet one could hardly imagine a sampling technique adequate for this problem. The argument might be raised that such operations involving no sampling are commonly met within physical chemical research, and that the solution of such a problem is not really analytical chemistry. The vital point here is that if the research is aimed at methods of solution of a measurement problem it is properly classified as analytical chemistry, whereas the interpretation of the results of the measurements infringes upon other fields of chemistry. To be sure, the solution of an analytical problem, in the classical sense of sampling, separation, and measurement, is often an essential step in research aimed in other directions, and analytical chemistry is continually benefiting from such contributions. But when there is failure to recognize a broader scope of analytical chemistry than the testing of samples, a serious discredit is done to a profession that is making a vital contribution to research in all branches of chemistry and other areas of science.
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