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  Home > JCE Print > Journal of Chemical Education > Issues > 1999  > February  >
Information • Textbooks • Media • Resources
Mathcad in the Chemistry Curriculum
Exploring Fourier Transform Techniques with Mathcad: FTIntro.mcd, FT2IR.mcd, FT3Pulse,mcd, and FT4FreeIndDecay.mcd
Mark Iannone
Millersville University, Department of Chemistry, Millersville, PA 17551

Cover
February 1999
Vol. 76 No. 2
p. 286

Abstract

These four Mathcad documents illustrate different aspects of the Fourier transform. They explore the source of the Nyquist frequency and the dependence of the resolution of the spectrum on sampling. In FTIntro.mcd, students achieve a qualitative understanding of the Fourier transform through experimentation with graphic representations of data and their transforms. In Part 1 of FTIntro.mcd, students sample a continuous function and learn how aliasing can occur; in Part 2, a vector of a more complex waveform illustrates that the frequencies contained in the waveform appear as spectral lines in the transform. Exercises permit further exploration of the Nyquist frequency and illustrate the relationship of resolution to number of samples. At the end, the students perform an integral transform of the same waveform. The second document, FT2IR.mcd, demonstrates how spectral information is coded in an interferogram and how the interferometric data limits resolution in the spectrum. In FT2IR.mcd, the inverse FT is used to generate an interferogram from a spectrum with two notches representing absorption. The third document, FT3Pulse.mcd, demonstrates that a short sample of a wave must contain a range of frequencies. In the fourth document, FT4FreeIndDecay.mcd, free induction decay (FID) and its Fourier transform are explored and related to NMR signal analysis. The entire set of documents contains many student exercises and hands-on activities for learning the concepts presented.

More Information
*  Citation
Iannone, Mark. J. Chem. Educ. 1999 76 286.
*  Keywords
Fourier Transform Techniques; NMR Spectrometry; Computer Assisted Instruction
*  History
Created:
Last Updated:
June 15, 1999
June 22, 2005
  Home > JCE Print > Journal of Chemical Education > Issues > 1999 > February > Page 286


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