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Mass Spectrometry Quiz

Mass Spectrometry Quiz

Test your knowledge on mass spectrometry and its history

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  • 1.
    The quadrupole mass filter has been known since the mid-1950s thanks to the work of Wolfgang Paul. The motion of ions in a quadrupole field can be described by solving second-order differential equations. When were these equations solved mathematically?

    Your answer:
    Correct answer:

    The solution of differential equations of this type came from the French mathematician Émile Léonard Mathieu (1835-1890), who studied the mechanical vibrations of the elliptical drumheads.

  • 2.
    What principle of positive ray detection was used in the first Thomson's parabola spectrographs?

    Your answer:
    Correct answer:

    In the spectrographs used by Thomson until 1910, the rays of positive electricity were detected by the phosphorescence they produced on a willemite screen. The screen was made by grinding rare zinc mineral willemite into a fine powder. After shaking in alcohol, the suspension was allowed to deposit slowly on a glass plate. Later, a photographic plate inside the spectrograph was used for more sensitive detection.

  • 3.
    What ionization technique was used for the first sequencing of peptides by mass spectrometry?

    Your answer:
    Correct answer:

    Mass spectrometry was used to sequence peptides for the first time in 1959 when K. Biemann described an innovative method based on the reduction of small peptides to polyamino alcohols with characteristic EI spectra. [https://doi.org/10.1021/ja01518a069]

  • 4.
    List these compounds according to their increasing mass: hydrazine (H4N2), oxygen (O2), methanol (CH4O).

    Your answer:
    Correct answer:

    The monoisotopic masses of these compounds are 31.989829 Da (oxygen), 32.026215 Da (methanol), and 32.037448 Da (hydrazine).

  • 5.
    Chemical ionization (CI) is a soft ionization technique used in mass spectrometry. Who discovered it?

    Your answer:
    Correct answer:

    Chemical ionization was discovered in the laboratories of the Humble Oil and Refining Company in Baytown, TX. Munson and Field’s seminal paper on chemical ionization was published in 1966.  [https://doi.org/10.1021/ja00964a001]

  • 6.
    The first on-line coupling of gas chromatography to a mass spectrometer was reported in 1959. What type of spectrometer was used for this purpose?

    Your answer:
    Correct answer:
    The first GC/MS experiments were carried out by Fred McLafferty and Roland Gohlke at Dow Chemical with Bill Wiley and Ian McLaren at Bendix Research Laboratories. They used a Bendix timeof- flight mass spectrometer, which had been commercially introduced in 1956. The instrument was fast enough to keep up with the changing output of the GC column.

  • 7.
    What is the electric charge of an ion with m/z = m?

    Your answer:
    Correct answer:

    The particle carries one elementary charge, the value of which is 1.602 176 634 × 10−19 C (exactly).

  • 8.
    How many elements of the periodic table have only a single stable isotope?

    Your answer:
    Correct answer:
    These so-called monoisotopic elements are beryllium, fluorine, sodium, aluminum, phosphorus, scandium, vanadium, manganese, cobalt, arsenic, rubidium, yttrium, niobium, rhodium, indium, iodine, cesium, lanthanum, praseodymium, europium, terbium, holmium, thulium, lutecium, rhenium, and gold.

  • 9.
    John Zeleny was an American physicist whose work laid the theoretical foundations of electrospray ionization. He was born in 1872 into a family of immigrants from Europe. Where did his family come from?

    Your answer:
    Correct answer:

    The parents of John Zelený, Antonín Zelený and Josefa Pitková, came from Křídla, a small village near Žďár nad Sázavou in Austria-Hungary (now the Czech Republic).

  • 10.
    What is the trajectory of a charged particle moving perpendicularly to a uniform magnetic field in a vacuum?

    Your answer:
    Correct answer:

    The magnetic force is perpendicular to the velocity so that it does no work on the charged particle. The particle’s kinetic energy and speed thus remain constant. The direction of motion is affected but not the speed.

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