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Topic: Question regarding Spectroscopy  (Read 5748 times)

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Offline deadally

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Question regarding Spectroscopy
« on: October 29, 2006, 09:14:20 AM »
I've been curious for a long time since I really like to interpret spectra.

Is there a branch of chemistry that deals significantly or entirely with interpreting spectral data?  Like, preparing a report on a substance to deduce its components?

It sounds a bit like analytical or forensics chemistry to me, but I just haven't heard of any field that uses interpretation significantly

Can anybody enlighten me?

Offline Yggdrasil

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Re: Question regarding Spectroscopy
« Reply #1 on: October 29, 2006, 12:30:56 PM »
Spectroscopy is such an important tool in chemistry, that just about any field of chemistry will have people who will spend a significant amount of time interpreting spectra.  For example, as you mentioned, analytical and forensic chemists will spend a lot of time doing mass spectrometry to identify compounds.  Organic chemists rely a lot on spectroscopy because that's the only way they can prove they synthesized the correct compound or how they can assign a structure to the compound they synthesized (for very complex molecules, this can generate a lot of controversy a la hexacyclinol.  Physical chemists and inorganic chemists use spectroscopy a lot as well (but I'm not familiar with these areas as much, so I can't go into too much detail; all I know is that my p-chem and inorganic chem friends shoot stuff with lasers for their research).  Even biochemists use spectroscopy, specifically NMR spectroscopy for protein structure determination.  If you like torturing yourself with peak assignments, what better way than to try to assign peaks to a very large molecule made of very similar repeating units.

Offline deadally

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Re: Question regarding Spectroscopy
« Reply #2 on: October 29, 2006, 08:32:59 PM »
Thanks, Yggdrasil!  Your comments are definitely helpful

I am still curious, though.  I've heard of universities hiring dedicated, say, NMR interpreters, and their jobs are to accept NMR outputs and interpret them. 

This seems like a dreamjob to me, personally, just sitting and interpreting spectra.

Of course, I don't figure it'd be as simple as my undergrad coursework has been; however, spectroscopy is a big enjoyable puzzle to me

Can anybody add?

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