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Instrumentation…‘Not Just Music’Q.M. ZakiPhysics Department, Faculty of Science, Universiti Putra Malaysia(e-mail: jejari@hotmail.com)Commentary“Instrumentation? What on Earth are you learning? Is it some kind of music? Do you mean instrumental? Will you end upas an instrumentalist who plays in orchestra?” That’s how people reacted when I answered that I am pursuing my bachelordegree in instrumentation science. Yes, instrumentation science. Again, it is SCIENCE! Do you expect me to be a musicianfor my future career? Think logically, if I want to be a musician, I would rather sing by the street or sign up for an auditionto let people see my talent or even further my study on something to do with music. Never mind. I am well understood thatthis field is somehow still new in our country and rarely heard by people. Therefore, I would like to share some informationabout the unknown side of instrumentation science.First of all, you have to know the definition of instrumentation science. Instrumentation is a set of instruments used tooperate and control a piece of machinery. Science, on the other hand is a discipline of knowledge related to the structureand behaviour of natural and physical world, based on facts that can be proved, for example by experiments. Thus, it isclarified that instrumentation science is more concern on the process, methods of manipulation and control system with theapplication of the study of science. This field revolves around the role of technology implemented in a particular operatingsystem and machinery. It is to make use the scientific knowledge in order to create, construct and maintain measurementsystems. As for my course, I will be dealing with scientific tools and electronic devices — not any musical instruments, tocarry out scientific research especially experimentation which involves a lot of laboratory work.Out of twenty IPTA’s, only five institutions offered a programme with instrumentation based so far. They are UniversitiTeknologi MARA, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Universiti Malaysia Pahang, Univerisiti Teknologi Malaysia Melaka, andUniversiti Malaysia Terengganu. However, in other countries, instrumentation science has been acknowledged earlierthan us. They even have a special classification for it. For example, there is the Department of Instrumentation Sciencein the University of Pune which offers a wide area of interdisciplinary research activities such as sensors, embeddedinstrumentation, analytical instrumentation using LabVIEW and virtual instrumentation, photonics and laser-basedinstrumentation.Instrumentation science mostly comprises the study of physics theories. In general, physics theories, majorly the electricand electronic studies, are applied for creation, modification, and maintenance of components used in operating a system.By powering the physics concept, a person will build up a firm base of instrumentation science to further expand it to alevel where it is very crucial to satisfy current needs in line with the rapid growth of technology nowadays. For instance,we have seen the revolution in kitchen utensils for cooking purposes — in the past, mortar and pestle are used to crushsubstances but now we have blender. Apart from that, ancient people cooked rice by boiling method. This method usedfirewood and charcoal as fuels to produce fire which takes a longer time for the burning process and besides the fire strengthis uncontrollable. They need to look after the cooking. When the world is modernized, people start to use the gas stove.Today is even more easy and quicker with the production of induction cooker which functioned using the electrical powersource. The temperature and time can be set. This is rather convenient when people, especially housewives are likely to bebusy with their career and has little time to cook. This is all about revolution in instrumentation system. Can’t you see howhuge the contribution of instrumentation science in our daily life?Enough about instrumentation in the knowledge perspective. Let’s move on to see how this particular field can affect theresearch and development (R&D) sector. One of our challenges in Vision 2020 as stated by Tun Dr Mahathir Mohammadis to establish a scientific and progressive community. It is crucial for us to overcome the challenge in order to achieveour goal to be an advanced country. Why is that? Most of advanced countries such as Sweden, Germany, Norway andUnited States of America are highly develop in technologies which allow them to be giant manufacturers. This empowersthe countries to be the major exporters all over the world. The achievement is encouraged by excellence in R&D becausewithout a broad and comprehensive research in science and technology, they are unable to invent new products and alsoincrease the efficiency of existing products.Hence, our country needs to excel in R&D to progress further. What are we actually lacking? It is the weaknessin technological resources that limits us to do well in R&D? Instrumentation science is the main key of a successfultechnological breakthrough because we know that technology involved a lot of scientific work with full use of instruments.77