Spectroscopy and the fourier transform. An interactive tutorial

Spectroscopy and the fourier transform. An interactive tutorial

Chemometrics and intelligent laboratory systems ELSEVIER Chemometricsand IntelligentLaboratorySystems34 (1996) 133 Book Review Ron Williams, Spectro...

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Chemometrics and intelligent laboratory systems ELSEVIER

Chemometricsand IntelligentLaboratorySystems34 (1996) 133

Book Review Ron Williams, Spectroscopy and the Fourier Transform. An Interactive Tutorial, VCH, Weinheim, 1995 (ISBN 1-56081-576-0). x + 102 pp. Price DM 108.00. This book is a short introduction to some applications of Fourier transform in spectroscopy. It is intended mainly as a tutorial on the subject, taking the reader from fundamental concepts to more complicated applications. A novelty of the book is the use of a widely available spreadsheet (Excel) for all the mathematical computations; this feature underlines the instructive and educational orientation of the book and extends the scope and user-friendliness of the book. The programs developed are included in a 3 1 / 2 in. disk supplied with the book. The first chapter is an introduction while the second introduces the principle of expressing any time-domain waveform as a superposition of sine and cosine terms. The next chapter is an important one: it deals with the generation of the real (cosine) and imaginary (sine) Fourier coefficients in the frequency domain, the power spectrum, the concept of 'phase', the fast Fourier transform (FFT) and the phenomenon of 'aliasing'.

Chapter four describes some general applications of Fourier methods such as frequency-domain convolution for filtering and correlation chromatography. In chapter five, the formalism (i.e. the maths) of the Fourier transform is elaborated upon; also, some alternatives to, or improvements of, the Fourier transform for representing data in the frequency domain (such as the Hartley transform for the manipulation of real-valued data). Chapters six, seven and eight are short introductions to Fourier transform Infrared Spectroscopy, Fourier transform Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy and Fourier transform Mass Spectroscopy, respectively. In general, the book is well written and the diagrams are as clear and simple as the nature of the book dictates. The book successfully ills the gap between simplistic, qualitative approaches to Fourier transform techniques on one hand and specialised textbooks heavy on mathematics on the other hand. I would warmly recommend the book as a minimum introductory text to those wishing to embark on any type of Fourier transform chemistry.

0169-7439/96/$15.00 Copyright © 1996 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved Pll S0169-7439(96)00024-X

A. Economou