Spectroscopy-11-01-2008

Columnist Ken Busch discusses the lack of a formal ethics training program for physical scientists and the need for some type of self-regulation within the field.

Products

Tracing requirements from a user requirements specification throughout the life cycle is not only a very effective business tool to save time and effort in validation projects but also a regulatory expectation. This first installment of a two-part column series looks at the principles of a traceability matrix.

Although the market for dedicated single-tube luminometers now pales in comparison to multimode fluorometers and microplate readers, such luminometers continue to satisfy a niche market. The relative simplicity and therefore low cost is their major advantage, which is appealing to smaller life science laboratories.

The authors discuss the use of ICP-MS as an effective chromatographic detection method that is relatively easy to interface to gas chromatography for gas analysis.

A short history of the early scientific developments related to the optical emission lines of hydrogen is presented. These were crucial to the development of the quantum theory. Balmer's empirical formula was an important milestone. Rydberg and others provided additional work, especially for higher atomic numbers. However, it remained for Bohr to provide the physical reasoning.