CHEM 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Mass Spectrometry, Neon, Relative Atomic Mass
Document Summary
#3 - the mass spectrometer, isotopes, average atomic weight, & the mole: the mass spectrometer - thomson"s cathode ray tube revisited. [this is covered in section 3. 1 of chapter 3 of your text. ] The last diagram in the accompanying early experiments document should prove useful as you read what follows. This diagram is similar to the diagram in chapter 3 - figure 3. 1 - of your text. As is often the case, the experimental method developed for solving a specific problem was modified to find later wide-spread use as a tool elsewhere. Crookes tube and thomson"s apparatus is the mass spectrometer. It is a valuable research tool for measuring the mass per unit charge of any substance that can be given a positive charge. Mass spectrometry offers the most direct measurement of atomic weights of elements, and it is the method by which isotopes (which we haven"t discussed yet) can be both identified and separated.
