Stealing our thunder
There’s a pretty fine line between physics and chemistry, especially certain types of physics and chemistry. Always has been. Matter is matter, and the labels sometimes fall off and get a bit mixed up. And that’s fine. But lately, the electrical engineers have been jumping all over the microfluidics/MEMS stuff… small molecule separations, biomolecule separations, PCR, DNA sequencing, fluorescent sensors, all built onto a chip and therefore slapped with the EE badge, when doing the same stuff in beakers has always been chemistry. Analytical chemistry.
It’s rather like a bunch of geologists going “hey — we know rocks” and starting to build houses, putting honest masons out of work.
So stop it, electrical engineers. Go back and make circuits or something, and leave the chemistry for chemists. We’ll call you if we need some channels cut in silicon. (Or we’ll just do it ourselves - who do you think invented all your fancy resists and masks and photoacids, hmm?)
2 Responses to “Stealing our thunder”
darceyjerromsky on 22 Oct 2004 at 7:05 pm #
Hey - all us engineers aint so bad! Thanks for linking to me!
Dad on 22 Oct 2004 at 7:48 pm #
Yay! Those engineers will take over and reinvent most any experimental technique. Problem is, they’re pretty good in the packaging and economics departments. Rather better than us physicists, and, I suspect, than chemists, either. I remember my advisor saying that, if my apparatus lasted longer than needed to confirm my results, it was “wasted time on engineering!”. I think that is typical. We know that someone will put pretty buttons and knobs on it, and sell it for a big profit. So we don’t need to do the engineering parts. But it would be nice if they gave credit (a nice reference to the Rev. Sci. I. articals would be fine) where it was due. And I recall a society of engineers, I forget which, but I think Aerospace, who wanted to lodge serious complaints with the press for their coverage of NASA’s work in the ’60’s: When it failed, it was an engineering flaw, but when it flew, it was a scientific wonder.