p People conduct observations and experiments mainly with the help of their sense organs. But the perceptive powers of these organs are limited. For instance, a naked eye can discern an object which is not smaller than 172 one-fortieth of a millimetre. The limited capacity of the sense organs is augmented by instruments without which science, particularly modern science, is inconceivable. The modern electronic microscope, for instance, enlarges the image of objects millions of times, and an analytical balance measures “weights” as small as one millionth of a milligram.

p Science employes the most diverse instruments. Above all they are means of making measurements and observations—chronometers, telescopes, microscopes, voltmeters, amperemeters, analytical balances, seismographs, the Wilson chamber (for studying elementary particles) and others; they are recording devices: photographic equipment, microfilms, memory tapes, control clocks and so forth; they are communications means—telegraph, telephone, radio, television, radars, photoelements, dictophones, signalling devices, etc; finally, they are computers—arithmometers, slide rules, electronic computers, mathematical tables, and so forth.

p An especially great role in modem science is played by computers which enormously broaden man’s intellectual capacity and rid him of the need to perform tedious operations (calculations, search for necessary data and so forth). Computers are a very powerful means of gathering, storing and processing information whose volume in our day of the scientific and technical revolution is increasing at an exceptionally rapid pace.

Instruments are indispensable for studying microprocesses which cannot be directly perceived. At the same time they have a “disturbing” effect on the object of investigation. For instance, in a certain way they change, or modify the properties of elementary particles. This provides idealists with the pretext to deny the objective reality of microparticles and to assert that their properties are created by instruments in the course of observation and measurement. But the fact that one and the same property can be observed with the help of different instruments, and that with the help of one instrument it is possible to observe various properties of particles, shows that the idealistic view of the microcosm is untenable. Nevertheless, when investigating the microcosm it is important to take the influence of the instruments into account, to segregate this influence and pick out the objective properties of the particles in their more or less “pure” state.