Microchemical and special methods of analysis in communication research

Analysis was beginning to take its place as an important branch of chemistry when, in 1828, Wöhler synthesized urea and the Age of Synthetic Organic Chemistry was born, destined to overshadow analysis for nearly a century. When interest in synthesis began to diminish, in the late 1800's, physical chemistry arose to intrigue the chemical mind. The analyst, thus neglected, had to work with apparatus, techniques and viewpoints evolved for other chemical purposes. In 1910 the Austrian Pregl found it necessary to analyze a sample too small for the then available technique to handle. His solution was the invention of a new kind of analysis — microanalysis, the essential features of which are: reduction of apparatus size and of scale of operations to a point commensurate with sample size; development of entirely new techniques, apparatus and chemical reactions specially suited to analysis; and inculcation in the mind of the analyst of the attitude that analytical problems are, in greater or less degree, research problems, and are to be approached as such, with a mind entirely unrestricted by chemical classicism. This article discusses the applications made by the Bell Telephone Laboratories of microanalytical and related special techniques to communication research and engineering.