Mass Spectrometry

When non-mass spectrometrists are talking about mass spectrometry it rather often sounds as if they were telling a story out of Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagi- tion. Indeed, mass spectrometry appears to be regarded as a mysterious method, just good enough to supply some molecular weight information. Unfortunately, this rumor about the dark side of analytical methods reaches students much earlier than their first contact with mass spectrometry. Possibly, some of this may have been bred by mass spectrometrists themselves who tended to celebrate each mass spectrum they obtained from the gigantic machines of the early days. Of course, there were also those who enthusiastically started in the 1950s to develop mass spectrometry out of the domain of physics to become a new analytical tool for chemistry. Nonetheless, some oddities remain and the method which is to be introduced herein is not always straightforward and easy. If you had asked me, the author, just after having finished my introductory course whether mass spectrometry would become my preferred area of work, I surely would have strongly denied. On the other hand, J. J. Veith's mass spectrometry laboratory at Darmstadt Univ- sity was bright and clean, had no noxious odors, and thus presented a nice contrast to a preparative organic chemistry laboratory. Numerous stainless steel flanges and electronics cabinets were tempting to be explored and – whoops – infected me with CMSD (chronic mass spectrometry disease).