Scientific Instruments
Stylus may also refer to the instrument used to scribe a recording into smoked foil or glass. In various scientific instruments this method may be used instead of a pen for recording as it has the advantage of being able to operate over a wide temperature range, does not clog or dry prematurely, and has very small friction in comparison to other methods. These characteristics were useful in certain types of early seismographs and in recording barographs that were once used to verify sailplane records. The styli used in scanning tunneling microscopes have only a single atom at the tip; these are effectively the sharpest styli possible.
Read more about this topic: Stylus
Famous quotes containing the words scientific and/or instruments:
“If a man is a good lawyer, a good physician, a good engineer ... he may be a fool in every other capacity. But no deficiency or mistake of judgment is forgiven to a woman ... and should she fail anywhere, if she has any scientific attainment, or artistic faculty, instead of standing her interest as an excuse, it is censured as an aggravation and offence.”
—E.P.P., U.S. women’s magazine contributor. The Una, p. 28 ( February 1855)
“But when to mischiefmortals bend their will,
How soon they find fit instruments of ill!”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)