Mass spec : the biography of a scientific instrument

Over the past century, the mass spectrometer has become commonplace in scientific fields ranging from chemistry to geology to environmental science. Its ability to identify compounds and determine concentrations of those compounds leads to a wide variety of applications, from environmental monitoring to disease diagnosis. This thesis is meant to familiarize the non-scientist with the mass spectrometer. It illustrates the instrument's basic physical principles and the wide range of research that utilize mass spectrometry. The story discusses the development of the mass spectrometer from the early experiments of JJ Thomson to modern uses in proteomics and attempts to miniaturize the instrument.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Graduate Program in Science Writing

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2011

Author dc:creator

• Calmes, Jordan

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Robert Kanigel.

• Graduate Program in Science Writing.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/68473

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/68473