Chemical Education Today
Letters The Laboratory Balance Thank you for an interesting article about how past authors and chemists have viewed Laboratory Balances (J. Chem. Educ. 2001, 78, 434). Years ago when learning quantitative analysis I came across the quotation below, which is very much in keeping with the beginning and at the end of the article. The other apparatus may be adequate, the reagents of the utmost purity, the methods of the best, and the manipulations careful, delicate, and conscientious; but if the balance and weights are not accurate, and not carefully taken care of, the labor and time expended on the analysis will largely go for naught. The balance and weights should, therefore, be regarded with a feeling akin to reverence, and the balance case looked upon, so to speak, as a sanctum sanctorum. —H. S. Washington F. Axtell Kramer St. Louis Community College–Meramec Campus Kirkwood, MO 63122
[email protected] JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu • Vol. 79 No. 5 May 2002 • Journal of Chemical Education
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