Editorial
Scavengers
T
he good measurement scientist (a.k.a. analytical chemist) is an opportunistic scavenger, always on the lookout for something lying around that can be adapted to a new purpose. Some measurement chemists are pack rats who collect and store scavenged artifacts whose purpose may not yet be clear, with faith that usefulness will dawn in time. The goods are varied, from a measurement principle to an electronic device to a new chemical material. Scavenging is an honorable science that should be praised and encouraged because many major advances in analytical chemistry have come from this activity. Let me give a few examples. Optical fibers, a scavenged byproduct of the technological push toward materials for optical communications, are a versatile way to bring the optical spectrometer to the sample and to accomplish remote and multiplexed analysis. Numerous piezoelectric materials have been scavenged from the ceramic science community, making possible near-field and (via physicists) scanning tunneling microscopy. Charge-coupled devices, wonderfully sensitive photon detectors, were scavenged from the astronomy community, and lasers— unarguably the most important new light source of modern chemistry—from their inventors, the physicists. Modern microelectronics has provided many scavenging opportunities, including interdigitated array electrodes and chemfets. Tin oxide-coated glass, developed for electrically defrosted windows, was adapted for optically transparent electrodes used in spectroelectrochemistry. An old but enormously important example is NMR, which the chemists scavenged from the physicists to produce the most powerful structural tool we have.
This list could go on several-fold, but let's stop and make some observations on it. First, many examples of scavenging from the physics community are accomplished by a great expansion of application. We owe a great deal to the physicists for these scavenged things, but they owe the chemists a lot for deducing the real usefulness of their inventions. Second, I'd like to impress on our readers, as I have in the past, that analytical chemists should take a broad but not insular attitude in journals read, professional meetings attended, and ideas thought, as that is the setting in which "scavengable" objects most often come to light. Third, of course, most of analytical chemistry does not come from scavenging activities; I would not insult us so. There have been many illustrations in previous editorials already. Fourth, I call attention to some interesting objects—rheological fluids, xerogels, and polymeric LB films—not yet scavenged, to my knowledge, for use in analytical chemistry. Finally, note that there are a lot of examples of basic measurement chemistry that have been scavenged from technological developments. This is the opposite direction to which "technology transfer" is conventionally assumed to proceed. In fact, technology transfer is clearly a circular business: Basic science learns from current technology and invents a new science that leads to new (and very often strikingly different) technology. This is the essence of what is called cross-fertilization in science. I have used the less elegant, but I believe more apt, term "scavenging." It is an honorable science.
Analytical Chemistry, June 1, 1995 343 A
