What tools do we use to measure the atomic weight of elements? Do scientists use the same tools they did 100 years ago?

Question

Thank you!

In: Chemistry

Answer 1

One way to do it would be using a mass spectrometer, which is essentially shooting an ionized atom through a magnetic field and measuring how much it is being deflected.

[Francis William Aston](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_William_Aston) got the Nobel price for chemistry for his work on mass spectroscopy in 1922, and there was [some work](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_mass_spectrometry) in that direction before that, so I’d say the answer to your second question should be yes.