Simon’s electrodes
The twisting tale of how ion-selective electrodes were developed
There is a curious gap in the training of the typical chemistry undergraduate in the UK. While everyone spends time untangling quantum mechanics, pushing arrows in organic reaction mechanisms and learning to count electrons to rationalise myriad inorganic structures, remarkably little time is spent on one of the key foundations of chemical science: measurement. Analytical chemistry, which underpins so much business activity, is often relegated to the margins.