Virtual Instruments

[Matt]

Recently I was given a demonstration of a PC driven workstation, comprising a number of virtual instruments interacting with a test assembly, whereby you can test electronic components and circuitry and use the various virtual instruments to apply test signals and view the resulting output signals and their analysis.  I feel quite excited about this type of system as you do not have heavy and numerous pieces of equipment to deal with. The scientist and engineer can virtually have their laboratory on a laptop. Also the system is environmentally friendly in that there is no manufacture or disposal of 'real instruments'.  Also energy consumption is minimised.  Purists may argue that this is not real science and only 'hands on' science is acceptable. I would like the opinion of scientists and engineers on the use of virtual instruments.

[Ian Lyon]

This sort of thing might be useful in some teaching environments but absolutely no way should it become a substitute for teaching or especially research.  There is a growing tendency to believe the output of models as 'data' but this is not so - there is only one great truth out there, its the real world that you have to test your ideas against.
Put simply, if you test virtual electronic circuits, as described, you can explore within all the parameters that have been built into the virtual circuit but you won't discover anything new!  The model can work on classical physics - but you will never discover evidence for quantum mechanics.  The real world is vastly more complex and sophisticated than we can imagine and we only progress by testing and falsifying hypotheses against how things work in the real world.  If virtual experiments become an accepted mode of research then that's the death of scientific progress.
I'm not saying that models and virtual experiments aren't useful tools, they can be if used wisely and with understanding - but their results must be tested against the real world, they can't be a substitute.
In teaching too, students like to get their hands on things, build them, understand when they don't work properly, give unexpected results.  This puts the fun into learning. 

So my comment would be - useful tool within strict limits, but that's it.