Fourier transforms in chemistry: Teaching with sound

CHED 505

Robert B. Gregory, gregoryr@ipfw.edu, Department of Chemistry, Indiana University Purdue University Fort Wayne, 2101 East Coliseum Blvd., Fort Wayne, IN 46805
Fourier transforms are critical mathematical operations in many areas of chemistry, particularly in analytical chemistry, and understanding them is very helpful in correcting students' understanding of the means by which the analyses are performed. Modern NMR, ion-cyclotron resonance, FTIR, and single crystal x-ray diffraction all use, and in fact, are only possible by using Fourier transforms in the data manipulation. In particular, the conversion between the time domain and the frequency domain is one of the more intimidating, but funadamental operation in the experiment, one that confuses many students and faculty alike. This paper presents a method of teaching these students about that conversion and the resulting interferrometric patterns using sound and the timber of sound to demonstrate how these two domains affect one another.
 

General Papers
8:00 AM-11:45 AM, Thursday, 14 September 2006 San Francisco Marriott -- Salon 10, Oral

Division of Chemical Education

The 232nd ACS National Meeting, San Francisco, CA, September 10-14, 2006